Experimental study of Ti : sapphire laser end-pumped Nd : YAG ceramic laser Q-switched by Cr4+: YAG saturable absorber

By employing a continuous-wave (CW) Ti:sapphire tunable laser as a pumping source and a Cr4+:YAG single crystal as the saturable absorber (SA), a passively Q-switched Nd:YAG ceramic laser has been demonstrated at room temperature. With an absorbed pumping power of 541 mW at 808 nm, an average output power of 61 mW at 1064 nm has been obtained with 3.5 mu J pulse energy, 15 ns pulse width and 18.18 kHz repetition rate, and the corresponding slope-efficiency is 15%. The relationships between the pulse width, repetition rate, average output power, pulse energy, and peak power on the absorbed pumping power for different initial transmission of the Cr4+:YAG SA are discussed separately. The Nd:YAG ceramic is one of the most promising laser materials for compact, efficient, all-solid-state pulsed lasers.

The intensity distribution and thermal stability of InnoSlab laser

Partially end-pumped slab laser is an innovative solid state laser, namely InnoSlab. Combining the hybrid resonator with partially end-pumping, the output power can be scaled with high beam quality. In this paper, the output intensity distributions are simulated by coordinate transformation fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm, comparing the thermal lens influence. As the simulated curves showed, the output mode is still good when the thermal lens effect is strong, indicating the good thermal stability of InnoSlab laser. Such a new kind of laser can be designed and optimized on the base of this simulation.

A Q-swicthed all-solid-state single-longitudinal-mode laser with adjustable pulse-width and high repetition rate

A single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) laser-diode pumped Nd: YAG laser with adjustable pulse width is developed by using the techniques of pre-lasing and changing polarization of birefingent crystal. The Q-switching voltage is triggered by the peak of the pre-lasing pulse to achieve the higher stability of output pulse energy. The output energy of more than 1 mJ is obtained with output energy stability of 3% (rms) at 100 Hz. The pulse-width can be adjusted from 30 ns to 300 ns by changing the Q-switching voltage. The probability of putting out single-longitudinal-mode pulses is almost 100%. The laser can be run over four hours continually without mode hopping.

Dynamic analysis of V-folded cavity for TEM00 operation of end-pumped solid-state laser

Based on graphic analysis design method of optical resonator, a simple design expression of V-folded cavity of end-pumped solid-state lasers with TEM00 operation is described, which satisfies two criterias of the resonator design. We give numerical simulation of spot size as a function of thermal focal length using this design approach whose advantages are validated experimentally.

High optical-optical efficiency of 52.5% obtained in high power Nd : YAG ceramic laser

Using a quite uniformly side-around arranged compact pumping system, a high power Nd:YAG ceramic quasi-CW laser has been demonstrated with high optical-to-optical conversion efficiency over 50% for the first time. With 450 W quasi-CW stacked laser diode bars pumping at 808 run. 236 W Output at 1064 run was obtained and no saturation phenomena were observed.

Nd : YAG ceramic laser obtained high slope-efficiency of 62% in high power applications

By using quite uniformly nine-stacks side-around arranged compact pumping system, a high power Nd:YAG ceramic quasi-CW laser with high slope efficiency of 62% has been demonstrated. With 450 W quasi-CW stacked laser diode bars pumping at 808 nm, performance of the Nd: YAG ceramic laser with different output coupling mirrors has been investigated. Optimum output power of 236 W at 1064 nm was obtained and corresponding optical-to-optical conversion efficiency was as high as 52.5%. The laser system operated quite stably and no saturation phenomena have been observed, which means higher output laser power could be obtained if injecting higher pumping power. The still-evolving Nd: YAG ceramics are potential super excellent media for high power practical laser applications. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America.

The analysis of the transient temperature distribution of double-slab Nd:YAG laser medium

A novel double-slab Nd:YAG laser, which uses face-pumped slab medium cooled by liquid with different temperatures on both sides, is proposed. The thermal distortion of wavefront caused by the non-uniform temperature distribution in the laser gain media can be self-compensated. According to the method of operation, the models of the temperature distribution and stress are presented, and the analytic solutions for the model are derived. Furthermore, the numerical simulations with pulse pumping energy of 10 J and repetition frequencies of 500 and 1000 Hz are calculated respectively for Nd:YAG laser medium. The simulation results show that the temperature gradient remains the approximative linearity, and the heat stress is within the extreme range. Then the absorption coefficient is also discussed. The result indicates that the doping concentration cannot be too large for the high repetition frequency laser. It has been proved that the high repetition frequency, high laser beam quality, and high average output power of the order of kilowatt of Nd: YAG slab laser can be achieved in this structure.

Kilohertz electro-optic Q-switched Nd : YAG ceramic laser

We investigate the lasing characteristics of a laser-diode-array side-pumped electro-optic Q-switched Nd:Y3Al5O12 ceramic laser operating at 1000 Hz pulse repetition rate. Using a YAG poltcrystalline rod with Nd3+ concentration at 1 at.% as the gain medium, pumping with 808 nm laser-diode-arrays, the Q-switched laser output at 1064 nm wavelength with 23 mJ pulse energy and less than 12 ns FWHM pulse width are obtained at a pumping power of about 400 W, the slope efficiency is around 15%, the output beam divergence angle is about 1.2 mrad.

Mode properties of off-axis one-sided hybrid resonator for novel high average power dual-slab laser

A novel dual-slab laser with off-axis one-sided hybrid resonator is presented. The mode properties of the hybrid resonator are calculated using a fast Fourier transform method (FFT). The influence of wavefront distoration on the output beam quality is considered. Results indicate that the novel dual-slab laser is better than the normal dual-slab laser with off-axis one-sided hybrid resonator.