High-repetition-rate eye-safe intracavity KTA OPO driven by a diode-end-pumped Q-switched Nd:YVO4 laser

An eye-safe, high-repetition-rate, single-resonant nanosecond intracavity optical parametric oscillator (IOPO), based on a non-critically phase-matched KTA crystal driven by a diode-end-pumped acousto-optically Q-switchedNd:YVO4 laser, was demonstrated for the first time to our knowledge. With an absorbed pump power of 11.3 W, 1.1 W average power and 2.5 ns pulse width at the signal (1534 nm) wavelength for 30-kHz repetition rate are synchronously achieved with the 25 mm long KTA crystal. The corresponding peak power and single pulse energy are estimated to be up to 14.7 kW and 36.7 μJ. The conversion efficiency from diode laser power to OPO signal output power was 9.8% and the corresponding slope efficiency was 15.4%. PACS 42.60.Gd; 42.65.Yj; 42.55.Xi