High efficiency 1341 nm Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> bounce laser in-band pumped at 879 nm

A high-efficiency Nd:GdVO₄ bounce laser in-band pumped at 879 nm is demonstrated for the first time. From a side-pumped Nd:GdVO₄ crystal, 8.2 W output was obtained with 18.5 W absorbed pump power. Corresponding slope efficiency with respect to the absorbed pump power was 51.4%, and the beam quality factor M2 is 1.13 and 1.15 for tangential direction and sagittal direction, respectively. Effects of crystal’s doping concentration and temperature on laser power and conversion efficiency were also investigated.     

Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> slab laser with line-shaped end-pumping profile operating at 912 nm

A continuous-wave laser with line-shaped end-pumping profile operating at 912 nm is presented. The maximum output power of 7.82 W is obtained, with a slop efficiency of 24.7% and beam quality factors of M _x ² ∼ 20, M _y ² ∼ 1.3. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first laser diode bar directly pumped Nd:GdVO₄ slab laser based on the quasi-three-level ⁴ F _3/2 → ⁴ F _9/2 transition in neodymium. Furthermore, we disclose that the experimental setups can be improved by inserting a plano-concave cylindrical lens in the cavity to form a new quasi-concentric resonator to improve die mode-matching in x-direction.     

All-solid-state CW Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript>-LBO red laser under direct 912 nm pumping

We report a red laser at 670.5 nm generation by intracavity frequency doubling of a continuous wave (CW) laser operation of a 1341 nm Nd:GdVO₄ laser under in-band diode pumping at 912 nm. An LBO crystal, cut for critical type I phase matching is used for second harmonic generation of the laser. At an incident pump power of 8.9 W, as high as 347 mW of CW output power at 670.5 nm is achieved. The fluctuation of the red output power was better than 3.7% in the given 30 min, and the beam quality factor M ² is 1.65.     

Continuous-wave simultaneous dual-wavelength operation at 912 nm and 1063 nm in Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript>

A continuous-wave, diode-pumped Nd:GdVO₄ thin disk laser with simultaneous dual-wavelength emission at the 912 nm ⁴ F _3/2→⁴ I _9/2 quasi-three-level transition and the 1063 nm ⁴ F _3/2→⁴ I _11/2 four-level transition is demonstrated and analyzed. Output powers of 1.7 W at 912 nm and of 1.6 W at 1063 nm were achieved simultaneously from a 0.3-at.%, 300-μm thick Nd:GdVO₄ crystal that was multi-pass excited with 26.8 W of available diode pump power. Second harmonic generation to 456 nm with LiB₃O₅ yielded 0.96 W in 912 nm single-wavelength operation and 0.73 W in 912 nm/1063 nm dual-wavelength operation. PACS 42.55.Rz; 42.60.By; 42.65.Ky     

Improvement of diode-end-pumped 912 nm Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser performance based on microchannel heat sink

To solve the thermal dissipation problem in diode-end-pumped solid state lasers and improve the performance of 912 nm Nd:GdVO₄ lasers, a novel microchannel heat sink is designed and used in the experiments. Heat-transfer coefficients for the common heat sink and microchannel heat sink are calculated. The results obtained for the heat-transfer coefficient for the heat sink with a channel width of 0.2 mm is almost 5 times higher than that of the common one. The heat resistance for the novel heat sink is analyzed. Simulation results show that the maximum temperature in the laser crystal is reduced by 19°C at an absorbed pump power of 24.0 W, and the heat transfer ability significantly increases if the microchannel heat sink is used. Experimental results also indicate that the performance for a 912 nm laser is improved significantly using the novel heat sink, especially from the aspects of laser-beam quality and power scaling.     

Improved performance of diode-end-pumped Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> 912 nm laser property with indium solder technology

A novel indium-solder technology is demonstrated to deal with the serious thermal dissipation problem in the 912 nm Nd:GdVO₄ laser operation. By use of indium-solder between the laser rod and the heat-sink, the contact resistance is reduced by removing the air bubble and heat conducting silicon and the boundary heat transfer coefficient is raised. After the indium-solder was used, it is found that the temperature in the laser rod and the deformation in the pumping end surface are eased remarkably based on a simulation of finite element analysis. Experimental results show that the continuous-wave 912 nm laser performance is improved obviously, both in a plano-plano cavity and a plano-concave cavity.     

All solid-state CW Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript>-GdCOB laser at 670 nm

We report the efficient compact red laser at 670 nm generation by intracavity frequency doubling of a continuous wave laser operation of a diode pumped Nd:GdVO₄ laser on the ⁴ F _3/2 → ⁴ I _13/2 transition at 1340 nm. An GdCa₄O(BO₃)₃ (GdCOB) crystal, cut for critical type I phase matching at room temperature is used for second harmonic generation of the laser. At an incident pump power of 18.2 W, as high as 1.32 W of continuous wave (CW) output power at 670 nm is achieved with 15-mm-long GdCOB. The optical-to-optical conversion efficiency is up to 7.3%, and the fluctuation of the red output power was better than 3.5% in the given 30 min.     

Compact diode-directly-pumped passively mode-locked TEM<Subscript>00</Subscript> Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser at 1341 nm using a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror

We report on a compact 880-nm diode-directly-pumped passively mode-locked TEM₀₀ Nd:GdVO₄ laser at 1341 nm with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) for the first time. Under the absorbed pump power of 14.6 W, the maximum output power of 1.27 W was obtained at the repetition rate of 85.3 MHz with the pulse width of 45.3 ps, corresponding to an optical-optical efficiency of 8.8% and the slope efficiency of 33.3%, respectively. The beam quality factor was measured to be M ² = 1.18, indicating a TEM₀₀ mode.     

Diode single-end-pumped AO Q-switched Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> 266 nm laser

By simple extra-cavity frequency conversion, the performance of a diode single-end-pumped AO Q-switched Nd:GdVO₄/KTP/BBO 266 nm laser was demonstrated. Under the incident pump power of 14.32 W, the maximum average output power at 266 nm was 374 mW at the repetition of 20 kHz; the opticaloptical conversion efficiency was 2.6%. The corresponding pulse width was 5 ns, with the single-pulse energy and peak power calculated to be 18.7 μJ and 3.74 kW, respectively. The dependence of the operational parameters on the pump power was also investigated experimentally.     

Diode-pumped short pulse passively Q-switched 912 nm Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript>/Cr:YAG laser at high repetition rate operation

A diode-end-pumped passively Q-switched 912 nm Nd:GdVO₄/Cr:YAG laser is demonstrated for the first time. In a concave-piano cavity, pulsed 912 nm laser performance is investigated using two kinds of Cr:YAG crystal with different unsaturated transmission (T _U) of 95% and 90% at 912 nm as the saturable absorbers. When the T _U = 90% Cr:YAG is used, as much as 2.6 W average output power for short pulsed 912 nm laser is achieved at an absorbed pump power of 34.0 W, corresponding to an optical efficiency of 7.6% and a slope efficiency of 20.3%. Moreover, 10.5 ns duration pulses and up to 2.3 kW peak power is obtained at the repetition rate around 81.6 kHz.     

AlGaInAs/InP eye-safe laser pumped by a Q-switched Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser

An AlGaInAs quantum-well structure grown on a Fe-doped InP transparent substrate is developed to be a gain medium in a high-peak-power nanosecond laser at 1570 nm. Using an actively Q-witched 1064 nm laser to pump the gain chip, an average output power of 135 mW is generated at a pulse repetition rate of 30 kHz and an average pump power of 1.25 W. At a pulse repetition rate of 20 kHz, the peak output power is up to 290 W at a peak pump power of 2.3 kW.     

diode-pumped single-frequency Tm:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser at 1897.6 nm

A diode end-pumped Tm:GdVO₄ laser at room temperature is reported. The maximal output power of single-frequency is as high as 34 mW by using two uncoated fused etalons, which are respectively 0.05 mm thick YAG and 1mm thick quartz. We obtained the single frequency Tm:GdVO₄ laser at 1897.6 nm with the slope efficiency of 1.3%. The single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) laser can be used as a seed laser for coherent wind measurements and differential absorption LIDAR systems.     

Diode-pumped doubly Q-switched Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser

By using both an acoustooptical (AO) modulator and a Cr⁴⁺:YAG saturable absorber in the cavity, a diode-pumped doubly Q-switched Nd:GdVO₄ laser, which can generate short pulses with high peak powers and symmetric temporal profiles, has been demonstrated. A peak power of 3.05 kW with a corresponding pulse width of 16 ns has been achieved at an incident pump power of 7.7 W. A reasonable analysis about the experimental results has been given by considering the ground-state absorption and excited-state absorption of a Cr⁴⁺:YAG crystal.     

Efficient CW Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript>-BiBO deep-blue laser at 456 nm under direct 888 nm diode laser pumping

We report an efficient laser emission on the 912 nm ⁴ F _3/2 to ⁴ I _9/2 transition in Nd:GdVO₄ under the pump with diode lasers at 888 nm. Continuous wave (CW) 4.91 W output power at 912 nm is obtained under 18.3 W of incident pump power; the slope efficiency with respect to the incident pump power was 57.5%. Moreover, intracavity frequency doubling with BiB₃O₆ (BiBO) nonlinear crystal yielded 1.33 W of deep-blue light at 456 nm.     

Cavity-dumped mode-locked Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser at low repetition rate

We report a cavity-dumped mode-locked Nd:GdVO₄ laser with semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors at low repetition rate. In this laser system, a single mode-locked laser pulse is generated, amplified and cavity-dumped by means of electro-optic modulator at 1 to 10 Hz repetition rate. The energy of the pulse is about 150 nJ and the pulse duration is determined to be 10 ps.     

High repetition rate passive Q-switching of diode-pumped Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser at 912 nm with V<Superscript>3+</Superscript>:YAG as the saturable absorber

The character of a diode-pumped passively Q-switched Nd:GdVO₄/V³⁺:YAG 912 nm laser was demonstrated for the first time to our knowledge. With an absorbed pump power of 7.4 W, an average output power of 360 mW with a Q-switched pulse width of 328 ns at a pulse repetition rate of 163 kHz was obtained. The Q-switching efficiency was found to be 32.7%. Our work further indicated V³⁺:YAG could be an effective fast passive Q-switch for 0.9 μm radiation.     

High efficiency continuous-wave single-frequency Nd:YVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> ring laser under diode pumping at 880 nm

An efficient single-frequency continuous-wave Nd:YVO₄ ring laser pumped at 880 nm is presented. With compact four-mirror ring cavity and optical isolator, we obtained an output power of 14.56 W at 1064 nm, corresponding to a slope efficiency of 61.7% and an optical-to-optical efficiency of 58.4% with respect to the absorbed pump power. The stability of the output power was better than ±0.5% over two hours. At the same time, a beam quality factor of M ²≈1.2 was measured and the line width of the longitudinal mode was about 25 MHz. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest slope efficiency and optical-to-optical efficiency in single-frequency Nd:YVO₄ ring laser.     

Room temperature diode-pumped 1875.1 nm Tm:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser

A diode end-pumped single-frequency Tm:GdVO₄ laser at room temperature was reported. The maximal output power of single-frequency is as high as 66 mW by using two uncoated fused etalons, which are respectively 0.05 mm thick YAG and 1 mm thick quartz. We obtained the single frequency Tm:GdVO₄ laser at 1875.1 nm. The slope efficiency is 1.5%. The change of the lasing wavelength on temperature was also measured. The single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) laser can be used as a seed laser for coherent wind measurements and differential absorption LIDAR systems.     

Efficient sub-nanosecond intracavity optical parametric oscillator pumped with a passively Q-switched Nd:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser

An efficient diode-pumped passively Q-switched Nd:GdVO₄/Cr⁴⁺:YAG laser was employed to generate a high-repetition-rate, high-peak-power eye-safe laser beam with an intracavity optical parametric oscillator (OPO) based on a KTP crystal. The conversion efficiency for the average power is 8.3% from pump diode input to OPO signal output and the slope efficiency is up to 10%. At an incident pump power of 14.5 W, the compact intracavity OPO cavity, operating at 46 kHz, produces average powers at 1571 nm up to 1.2 W with a pulse width as short as 700 ps. PACS 42.60.Gd; 42.65.Yj; 42.55.X     

Diode pumped Nd:Lu<Subscript>0.5</Subscript>Y<Subscript>0.5</Subscript>VO<Subscript>4</Subscript>-LBO red laser at 671 nm

We report a efficient compact red laser at 671 nm generation by intracavity frequency doubling of a continuous wave laser operation of a diode pumped Nd:Lu_0.5Y_0.5VO₄ laser on the ⁴ F _3/2-⁴ I _13/2 transition at 1342 nm. An LBO crystal, cut for critical type I phase matching at room temperature is used for second harmonic generation of the laser. At an absorbed pump power of 17.8 W, as high as 2.25 W of continuous wave output power at 671 nm is achieved with 10-mm-long LBO. The optical-to-optical conversion efficiency is up to 12.6%, and the fluctuation of the red output power was better than 3.6% in the given 30 min.