High-peak-power,high-repetition-rate LD end-pumped Nd:YVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> burst mode laser

A compact high-peak-power, high-repetition-rate burst mode laser is achieved by an acousto-optical Q-switched Nd:YVO₄ 1064 nm laser directly pumped at 878.6 nm. Pulse trains with 10–100 pulses are obtained using acousto-optical Q-switch at repetition rates of 10–100 kHz under a pulsed pumping with a 1 ms duration. At the maximum pump energy of 108.5 mJ, the pulse energy of 10 kHz burst mode laser reaches 44 mJ corresponding to a single pulse energy of 4.4 mJ and an optical-to-optical efficiency of 40.5 %.The maximum peak power of ~468.1 kW at 10 kHz is obtained with a pulse width of 9.4 ns. The beam quality factor is measured to be M ² ~1.5 and the pulse jitter is estimated to be less than 1 % in both amplitude and time region.     

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     

High-repetition-rate megawatt millijoule pulses from a Nd:YVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser passively Q-switched by a semiconductor saturable absorber

We exploit an AlGaInAs periodic quantum-well absorber with a large modulation strength to realize a multi-mJ passively Q-switched Nd:YVO₄ laser with a repetition rate up to 200 Hz. At a pump energy of 34 mJ, the output pulse energy and the peak power are found to be 3.5 mJ and 1.1 MW, respectively. The fluctuation of the output pulse energy is generally less than ±2%.     

A Novel 1,066 nm Nd:Gd<Subscript>0<Emphasis Type="Italic">.</Emphasis>69</Subscript>Y<Subscript>0<Emphasis Type="Italic">.</Emphasis>3</Subscript>NbO<Subscript>4</Subscript> Passively <Emphasis Type="Italic">Q</Emphasis>-Switched Pulse-Burst Laser

We demonstrate for the first time a Cr⁴⁺:YAG passively Q-switched 1066 nm pulse-burst laser under 879 nm direct pump with a novel Nd:Gd_0.69Y_0.3NbO₄ crystal. The output laser characteristics with different pump repetition rates and different Cr⁴⁺:YAG initial transmission are studied. Without the Cr⁴⁺:YAG, we obtain a maximum output energy of 2.55 mJ at an absorbed pump energy of 5.79 mJ with the highest 48% slope efficiency. The pulse-burst laser contains a maximum of 7 pulses for a Cr⁴⁺:YAG initial transmission of 55% and a pump repetition rate of 1 kHz. The single-pulse energy and narrowest pulse width reach 160 μJ and 5.5 ns at 38.2 kHz, with a peak power of 32 kW.     

Injection-Seeded 500 Hz Repetition Rate High Peak Power Single-Frequency Nd:YAG Laser for Mid-Infrared Generation

We develop an injection-seeded single-frequency neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) laser with 500 Hz repetition rate and high peak power. The laser construction is designed as seed injection and master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) including single-frequency master oscillator, extra-cavity frequency doubling crystal, and round-trip power amplifier. The master oscillator can emit 1,064 nm laser of 8.4 mJ with 6.8 ns pulse width at the pump energy equal to 23 mJ. A green laser energy of 1.1 mJ is obtained by setting the proper temperature of the LBO crystal. The pulse energy of 1,064 nm laser decreases to 6.5 mJ after passing through the LBO crystal and rises to 25.3 mJ after a round-trip power amplifier corresponding to the extraction efficiency of 29%. The final output pulse width is 6.5 ns, representing a peak power of 3.9 MW. The 1,064 nm laser beam quality factor M² of the master oscillator and the amplified one are 1.3 and 1.5, respectively. The laser will be used to generate mid-infrared where the 532 nm laser with narrow pulse width is to pump sheet optical parametric oscillator (OPO) and the 1,064 nm laser with high peak power to pump the OPO.     

A miniature tunable TEA CO<Subscript>2</Subscript> laser using isotope <Superscript>13</Superscript>C<Superscript>16</Superscript>O<Subscript>2</Subscript> and <Superscript>12</Superscript>C<Superscript>16</Superscript>O<Subscript>2</Subscript>

A miniature tunable TEA CO₂ laser using isotope ¹³C¹⁶O₂ as the active medium is developed to extend the spectral range of CO₂ lasers for further application. The optimization of the energy parameters of the tunable TEA ¹³C¹⁶O₂ laser and the same laser using ¹²C¹⁶O₂ are studied. When a gas mixture (¹³C¹⁶O₂: N₂: He = 1: 1: 3) at a total pressure of 6.4 × 10⁴ Pa is used, the TEA ¹³C¹⁶O₂ laser of a 45-cm³ active volume obtains 51 emission lines in the [00⁰1–10⁰0] and [00⁰1–02⁰0] bands. The maximum pulse energy of the TEA ¹³C¹⁶O₂ laser is about 357 mJ. The same laser using the conventional gas mixture (¹²C¹⁶O₂: N₂: He = 1: 1: 3) at a pressure of 6.66 × 10⁴ Pa is measured to obtain 69 laser emission lines and the maximum pulse energy of laser radiation is about 409 mJ.     

Broad-band regenerative laser amplification in ytterbium-doped calcium fluoride (Yb:CaF<Subscript>2</Subscript>)

An output pulse energy of 17.3 mJ has been achieved with a diode-pumped Yb:CaF₂ regenerative laser amplifier. The bandwidth of the output pulse spectrum was 7.3 nm, being seeded with femtosecond pulses stretched to 2.2 ns. In cw operation a tuning range of 80 nm has been observed. A maximum pulse energy of 44 mJ at a repetition rate of 1 Hz has been obtained in Q-switched mode. The laser damage threshold of a Yb:CaF₂ crystal has been determined at a wavelength of 1064 nm and a pulse duration of 10 ns. PACS 42.55.Ah; 42.55.Xi; 42.70.Hj     

High-energy PPMgLN optical parametric oscillator pumped by a 1.064 μm E-O Q-Switched Nd:YAG laser

A high-energy PPMgLN optical parametric oscillator (OPO) pumped by a E-O Q-switched Nd:YAG laser working at 1.064 μm was successfully illustrated. A maximum output pulse energy of 3.4 mJ was obtained with a pump threshold of 1.5 mJ and a slope efficiency of 30% around room temperature. The OPO output signal and idler wavelength were 1552 and 3384 nm, respectively. The damage to the input surface of PPMgLN crystal was carefully observed with a damage threshold of 4.6 J/cm².     

Optical parametric oscillators for high pulse energy and high average power operation based on large aperture periodically poled KTP and RTA

We report on optical parametric oscillators (OPOs) based on large aperture periodically poled KTiOPO₄ (PPKTP) and RbTiOAsO₄ (PPRTA) pumped with high pulse energy and high average power Q-switched solid-state lasers. The OPOs were pumped with 1064-nm pulses of a diode-pumped Nd:YVO₄ laser at 20 kHz repetition rate. The emitted signal wavelengths were 1.72 μm and 1.58 μm and the idler wavelengths were 2.79 μm and 3.26 μm, respectively. Pumping the PPKTP OPO with 7.2 W and the PPRTA OPO with 8 W average power, 2 W and 1.3 W total OPO output powers were generated. Two-dimensional measurements of the total OPO output power, the signal wavelength and the signal bandwidth in dependence on the crystal location indicated a good uniformity of the quasiphasematching structure over the entire 3-mm-thick crystals. This allowed pumping with larger pump beams and therefore with pulse energies of tens of millijoules. Pumping with different flash-lamp-pumped lasers, good OPO performance and high output pulse energies could be achieved for all pump lasers. Maximum input pulse energies of 56 mJ gave output pulse energies of as much as 18 mJ. The temperature tuning behaviors of both OPOs were measured, showing excellent agreement with calculated temperature tuning curves. New equations for temperature dispersion in RTA are presented. These results show that large-aperture PPKTP and PPRTA crystals are well suited for tunable nanosecond OPO operation with multi-watt average pump power and several tens of millijoules pump pulse energies. Received: 7 September 2001 / Published online: 7 November 2001     

Travelling-wave 1.57-µm optical parametric oscillator driven by a pulsed multimode Nd3+:YAG laser

The generation properties of an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) with a three-mirror ring resonator have been investigated under conditions of a pulsed pump by multimode radiation from a Nd³⁺:YAG laser. KTP crystals were used as the OPO nonlinear medium. At pump energies up to 100 mJ, decreasing the diameter d of the Nd³⁺:YAG laser beam causes a decrease in OPO radiation divergence and an increase in the generation efficiency at λ = 1.571 μm despite a decrease in the differential efficiency. At d = 2.25 mm and a KTP crystal total length of 40 mm, the efficiency of the pump conversion to the signal-wave pulse reaches 36.5%. Based on the traveling-wave OPO, a compact, highly effective, eye-safe laser source radiating pulses of up to 35 mJ in energy, 11 nsec in duration, and 10 Hz in repetition rate at electrical pump energy of ≤ 8 J is developed. At the 86.5% level of the total pulse energy, the source-beam divergence does not exceed seven diffraction limits. __________ Translated from Zhurnal Prikladnoi Spektroskopii, Vol. 75, No. 4, pp. 516–523, July–August, 2008.     

High-repetition-rate eye-safe optical parametric oscillator intracavity pumped by a diode-pumped Q-switched Nd:YVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser

A high-repetition-rate eye-safe optical parametric oscillator (OPO), using a non-critically phase-matched KTP crystal intracavity pumped by an acousto-optically (AO) Q-switchedNd:YVO₄ laser, is experimentally demonstrated. It is found that the average OPO signal power at 1573 nm can be efficiently increased by increasing the pulse repetition rate. Moreover, the intracavity OPO process effectively shortens the pulse width so that it is in the range 5∼8 ns for pulse repetition rates of 10 to 80 kHz. As a result of the relatively short pulse, the peak power at 1573 nm is higher than 2 kW at a pulse repetition rate of 80 kHz. Received: 10 July 2002 / Published online: 26 February 2003 RID="*" ID="*"Corresponding author. Fax: +886-35/729-134, E-mail: yfchen@cc.nctu.edu.tw     

Al<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>3</Subscript> plasma production during pulsed laser deposition

A Nd:YAG laser operating in second harmonic (532 nm), 3 ns pulse duration, 150 mJ pulse energy, and 10 Hz repetition rate, is employed to irradiate Al₂O₃ target placed in high vacuum. The produced plasma is investigated by an ion collector used in time-of-flight configuration and by a mass quadrupole spectrometer, in order to determine the equivalent plasma temperature and the atomic and molecular composition. Pulsed laser deposition technique has been used to produce thin films on different substrates placed close to the target. Different surface analyses, such as energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and surface profilometry are employed to characterize the produced films. Measurements of ablation yield, plasma equivalent temperature, acceleration voltage and characterization of grown thin films are presented and discussed.     

Q-switched Ho:YAlO<Subscript>3</Subscript> laser pumped by Tm:YLF laser at room temperature

A Q-switched high efficient Ho:YAlO₃ (Ho:YAP) laser pumped by a diode-pumped Tm:YLF laser at room-temperature is realized. The maximum output energy reaches 1.58 mJ under the repetition frequency of 5 kHz, when the incident pump power is 15.6 W. The pulse width is 22 ns. The wavelength is 2118 nm when the transmission of output coupler is 30%. The beam quality factor is M ² ∼ 1.39 measured by the traveling knife-edge method.     

Diode-pumped Q-switched Nd:Y<Subscript>0.5</Subscript>Lu<Subscript>0.5</Subscript>VO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser double-modulated with an acousto-optic modulator and Cr<Superscript>4+</Superscript>:YAG saturable absorber

A diode pumped Nd:Y_0.5Lu_0.5VO₄ pulse laser modulated with an acousto-optic (AO) Q-switcher and Cr⁴⁺:YAG saturable absorber is first demonstrated in this paper. The laser is shown to generate shorter pulse width than AO Q-switched laser alone, and have a higher peak power and single pulse energy than passively Q-switched laser with only Cr⁴⁺:YAG. A laser pulse width of 6.16 ns and a peak power of about 43.83 kW are achieved at the incident pumping power of 14.09 W.     

High-power,high-quality ZGP OPO pumped by a Tm,Ho:GdVO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser

We report a ZGP OPO system capable of producing >6 W at a signal wavelength of 3.80 μm and an idler wavelength of 4.45 μm. The pumping source is the Tm,Ho:GdVO₄ laser operated at 2.049 μm with an M ² of 1.07. The ZGP OPO generated a total combined output power of 6.1 W at signal wavelength and idler wavelength under pumping power of 18.3 W, and an M ² of 1.7 for OPO output was obtained.     

Electro-optic Q-switched intracavity optical parametric oscillator at 1.53 μm based on KTiOAsO4

An eye-safe, high peak power optical parameter oscillator (OPO) intracavity pumped by electro-optic Q-switched Nd:YAG laser is presented. This OPO is based on a 20 mm length KTiOAsO₄ crystal with non-critical phase matching (θ = 90°, ?=0°) cut. An aperture ∅3 mm acted as limiting diaphragm to get good beam quality of pumping laser. The output energy of 25 mJ at the signal wavelength 1.53 μm was obtained with repetition rate of 1 Hz. The highest peak power intensity was up to 88 MW/cm² with pulse width of 4 ns. Without diaphragm, the maximum output energy of 90 mJ was achieved with area of light spot (∅6 mm) four times larger, but the peak power intensity was lower.     

Eye-safe radiation source based on an optical parametric oscillator

We have studied an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) with an unstable telescopic cavity, placed inside the cavity of an actively Q-switched multimode Nd³⁺:KGW pump laser. We used a KTP crystal as the nonlinear medium for the OPO. We have compared the emission characteristics of OPOs with unstable telescopic and planar cavities. We have established that compared with the planar cavity, the unstable cavity reduces the OPO beam divergence and improves the spatial distribution of the radiation energy in the far wave zone. Based on our investigations, we have designed a compact eye-safe (λ = 1.578 μm) laser source with natural cooling, emitting (for electrical pumping energy 7.3 J) pulses with pulse energy 22 mJ and pulse duration 6 nsec. The FWHM beam divergence for the source is no greater than 3.5 mrad. __________ Translated from Zhurnal Prikladnoi Spektroskopii, Vol. 73, No. 2, pp. 254–259, March–April, 2006.     

Characteristics of diode-pumped dual-loss-modulated Q-switched and mode-locked Nd:Lu<Subscript>0.15</Subscript>Y<Subscript>0.85</Subscript>VO<Subscript>4</Subscript> laser

A diode-pumped dual-loss-modulated Q-switched and mode-locked (QML) Nd:Lu_0.15Y_0.85VO₄ laser with acousto-optic (AO) modulator and Cr⁴⁺:YAG saturable absorber is presented. The stable QML laser pulse with high peak power and complete modulation depth has been obtained. The QML laser characteristics such as the pulse width, single-pulse energy etc. have been measured for different small-signal transmissions (T ₀) of Cr⁴⁺:YAG, different reflectivity (R) of output coupler and modulation frequencies of the AO modulator (f _p ). The results show that the pulse energy increases with decreasing f _p and increasing T ₀, while the pulse width decreases with decreasing f _p and increasing T ₀. At f _p = 10 kHz, R = 90%, and T ₀ = 91%, the highest pulse energy and peak power of mode-locked pulses is obtained.     

Laser-diode-pumped Nd:YVO<Subscript>4</Subscript>/Nd:YAG MOPA burst-mode laser

We report a high-repetition-rate, high-peak-power laser diode (LD) pumped burst-mode 1064 nm laser from a Nd:YVO₄/Nd:YAG master oscillator power amplifier. 10–100 kHz pulse burst in a duration up to 2 ms is achieved in LD end-pumped Nd:YVO₄ acousto-optically Q-switched laser. After amplification with LD side-pumped Nd:YAG rod amplifiers, the single pulse energy reaches 73 mJ in 10 kHz pulse burst laser with a peak power of 7.8 MW.     

Nanosecond optical parametric oscillator based on large-aperture periodically poled RbTiOAsO(4)

We report on optical parametric oscillators (OPO's) based on periodically poled RbTiOAsO(4) (PP RTA), which are pumped by Q -switched solid-state lasers. With a diode-pumped Nd:YVO(4) laser (pulse energy, 800microJ ; pulse duration, 5.5 ns; repetition rate, 1 kHz) the PP RTA OPO generated 1.58-microm signal and 3.26-microm idler radiation with a signal pulse energy of 45microJ . The large aperture of 3 mmx3 mm of the PP RTA crystal also permitted OPO operation with pump pulse energies as high as 65 mJ, provided by a flash-lamp-pumped Q -switched Nd:YAG laser (pulse duration, 20 ns; repetition rate, 10 Hz). With this pump source the OPO generated signal pulse energies as high as 17 mJ, corresponding to an efficiency of 26%. The performance of this OPO shows that large-aperture PP RTA crystals are well suited for pulsed nanosecond OPO operation with pump pulse energies of tens of millijoules.