Highly efficient Nd:YVO_4 laser by direct in-band diode pumping at 914 nm (original) (raw)

1064 nm Nd:YVO_4 laser intracavity pumped at 912 nm and sum-frequency mixing for an emission at 491 nm

Optics Letters, 2008

We present for the first time a Nd: YVO 4 laser emitting at 1064 nm intracavity pumped at 912 nm by a Nd: GdVO 4 laser. We carried out a model to design the system properly, and laser performance was experimentally investigated. Intracavity sum-frequency mixing at 912 and 1064 nm was then realized in a BiBO crystal to reach the blue range. We obtained a cw output power of 155 mW at 491 nm with a pump laser diode emitting 20 W at 808 nm.

High-power diode-end-pumped Nd:YVO4 laser: thermally induced fracture versus pump-wavelength sensitivity

Applied Physics B, 2000

We report two kinds of compact and efficient diode-end-pumped TEM 00 lasers with output power > 25 W at ≈ 50 W of incident pump power. One laser consists of a single 0.3 at. % Nd:YVO 4 crystal in a V-type cavity, the other laser includes two 0.5 at. % Nd:YVO 4 crystals in a linear cavity. Experimental results show that lowering Nd 3+ concentration can be beneficial in extending the fracturelimited pump power but it also increases the sensitivity of the pump wavelength due to the overlapping efficiency.

In-band pumping of Nd-based solid-state lasers

Romanian Reports on Physics

The author is presenting output performances obtained from Nd-based laser materials that were in-band pumped directly into the 4 F 3/2 emitting level. Continuous-wave (cw) laser operation at 1.06 μm with slope efficiency of 0.79 in Nd:YAG and 0.80 in Nd:GdVO 4 and Nd:YVO 4 was realized using an end-pumping configuration and a tunable Ti:Sapphire laser around 0.88 μm as source of excitation. These slopes are very close to the limits of the investigated laser materials. Laser operation at 0.946 μm in Nd:YAG with slope efficiency as high as 0.68 was also demonstrated. The influence of an increased Nd concentration on the quantum efficiency of the 4 F 3/2 emitting level in Nd:YAG is discussed, and laser performances at 1.06 μm in highly-doped Nd laser are investigated. Laser emission at 1.3 μm was demonstrated for the first time in a highly-doped 2.5 at % Nd:YAG under pumping with diode lasers at 0.88 μm. First diode end-pumped at 0.88 μm Nd:GdVO 4 laser that generated 5.1 W of green at...

Effect of Nd3+ concentration on CW and pulsed performance of fiber-coupled diode laser pumped Nd:YVO4 laser at 1064 nm

Pramana, 2002

The effect of Nd 3· concentration on the CW and Q-switched laser performances at 1064 nm from Nd : YVO 4 has been studied under diode laser pumping in identical laser configuration. The Nd 3· concentrations used were 1, 2 and 3 at. % in YVO 4 crystals. Under the CW operations we have compared the thermal lensing effect, slope efficiencies and also the beam quality at the fourth-order degeneracy configuration. Q-switching was done with the help of an acousto-optic modulator and we have compared the pulses obtained from Nd : YVO 4 laser with different doping concentration. It was found that the 1 at.%-doped crystal is the best, offering highest optical-to-optical conversion efficiency (55%), lowest fractional heat load (24%), highest pulse energy (80 µJ) and shortest pulse width (20 ns). It was also found that there was not much difference in performances for 2 and 3 at. %doped crystals both in CW and Q-switched configurations.

Compact, diode-side-pumped Nd^3+:YLiF_4 laser at 1053 nm with 45% efficiency and diffraction- limited quality by mode controlling

Optics Letters, 2009

We demonstrate what we believe to be the highest efficiency obtained to date in a transversely diodepumped Nd 3+ : YLiF 4 slab laser operating at 1053 nm. The compact 11-cm-long laser cavity configuration is based on total internal reflection of the intracavity beam at the pump facet of the gain crystal to improve the overlap with the pump radiation. Multimode operation with 9.5 W of output power and an efficiency of 45% is obtained for 21 W of pump power in a single-pass configuration. Using a second pass through the crystal and a new mode-controlling technique, the beam quality is improved to the diffraction limit with 6.9 W of output power and 33% of optical-to-optical efficiency.

Efficient 671-nm pump source by intracavity doubling of a diode-pumped Nd:YVO4 laser

Journal of The Optical Society of America B-optical Physics, 2002

A diode-pumped, intracavity-doubled Nd:YVO 4 laser, generating as much as 760 mW of power at 671 nm, which was used to efficiently pump a Cr:LiSAF laser, is described. A slope efficiency of Ϸ39% with maximum continuous-wave output power of Ͼ180 mW was achieved with this system. Experiments in tunability and generation of ultrashort pulses are also reported.

Comparison of cw laser performance of Nd:KGW, Nd:YAG, Nd:BEL, and Nd:YVO 4 under laser diode pumping

Applied Physics B: Lasers and Optics, 1998

We have compared the cw laser performance of Nd:KGW, Nd:YAG, Nd:BEL, and Nd:YVO 4 crystals under low-power laser diode end-pumping. Output power dependencies on the pump power and the pump wavelength of these diode-pumped solid state lasers were investigated. The high Nd 3+ concentration of the Nd:KGW samples used in our measurements as well as up-conversion and exited-state absorption processes in Nd:KGW cause the reduced laser output power dependence on the pump wavelength which was experimentally observed. At pump levels up to 270 mW a slope efficiency of η sl ≈ 46% was reached for the Nd:KGW laser. Nd:KGW microchip laser operation with a slope efficiency of η sl ≈ 50% was demonstrated. Thermal lensing in Nd:KGW at pump powers up to 3 W was measured.

High-power diode-end-pumped laser with multi-segmented Nd-doped yttrium vanadate

Optics Express, 2013

A Nd:YVO 4 crystal consisting of three segments with different doping concentrations is originally developed for power scaling in diodeend-pumped solid-state laser. We systematically make a comparison of laser characteristics between the multi-segmented and conventional composite crystals to show the feasibility of using gain medium with multiple doping concentrations for power scale-up in end-pumped laser without introducing significant thermally accompanied effects. We further construct a dual-end-pumped actively Q-switched oscillator at 1064 nm to verify the usefulness of our crystal design, where the largest pulse energy of 1.06 mJ and the highest output power of 45 W are efficiently generated.

High-efficiency longitudinally-pumped miniature Nd:YVO4 laser

Optics & Laser Technology, 1998

We report on fundamental and intracavity frequency-doubled emission in a miniature Nd:YVO 4 (3 Â 3 Â 1 mm) laser. A maximum slope eciency of Z s = 58.6%, with optical eciency of Z 0 = 53.0% at 780 mW pump power was realized in a TEM 00 output beam. To obtain the optimum pump-beam focusing conditions we applied a new formalism in which the pump-beam propagation in the active medium was described by its M 2 factor. A good agreement between theoretical predictions and experimental results was observed. In second-harmonic regime, obtained by a KTP crystal, H230 mW green power that corresponds to H54% nonlinear conversion eciency was reached.