High-pulse-energy passively Q-switched quasi-monolithic microchip lasers operating in the sub-100-ps pulse regime

Abstract

We present passively Q-switched microchip lasers with items bonded by spin-on-glass glue. Passive Q-switching is obtained by a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. The laser medium is a Nd:YVO(4) crystal. These lasers generate pulse peak powers up to 20 kW at a pulse duration as short as 50 ps and pulse repetition rates of 166 kHz. At 1064 nm, a linear polarized transversal and longitudinal single-mode beam is emitted. To the best of our knowledge, these are the shortest pulses in the 1 microJ energy range ever obtained with passively Q-switched microchip lasers. The quasi-monolithic setup ensures stable and reliable performance.

Reduction of the pulse repetition period jitter of a diode-pumped passively Q-switched solid-state laser

“…Equation (5) obtained for the delay T 0 includes, as a special case, the pulsed self-oscillatory regime of laser operation with continuous pumping [8,9] and transforms to the self-oscillation period, the equation for which was obtained in [12]. It follows from Eq.…”

“…Root-mean-square values of the currents I 0 and I p of the pump diode correspond to the optical pump powers P 0 and P p , respectively. Figure 4a corresponds to the self-oscillatory regime of the laser operation [8,9] with a pulse repetition rate of 3.9 kHz and a jitter of 22 µs. For the combined pumping (Fig.…”

“…When pulsed solid-state lasers are used as the basis for the development of distance meters, master oscillators, synchronization systems, coherent optical radars, and remote gauges [5][6][7], it is necessary to reduce a jitter of the repetition period T of the generated pulses, i.e., to increase the stability of the repetition rate F = 1/T . Reduction of the jitter is especially important at lower rates F , since it increases with decreasing repetition rate [8], depends on F as 1/F γ , where γ = 1.3-1.4 [9], and amounts to about 10% for F ∼ 10 kHz [8,9]. When studying the possibility to reduce the jitter, various pump schemes and active laser elements are of interest.…”

Scaling Q-switched microchip lasers for shortest pulses

“…This resonator design lends itself extremely well to existing wafer-like bulk manufacture methods, enabling tens, or even hundreds, of identical devices to be created from a single crystal of gain material. The resulting laser is then typically end-pumped by a laser diode source, and passively Q-switched using crystalline [7,[9][10][11], or semiconductor [1,3,[12][13][14][15][16], saturable elements. Of these two Q-switching approaches, semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) have achieved the shortest pulses by virtue of adding negligible length to the laser resonator, with generated pulses as short as 37 ps from a 185 lm resonator [1].…”

Design and Characterization of Resonator Mirrors for Microlasers on the Base of YAlO3Single Crystals Activated with Nd3+and Tm3+Ions

“…Many research papers are known to be dedicated to designing and investigating the microchip lasers and microlasers based on different single crystal materials, such as: epitaxial structures vanadates [1], borates [2] [3][4][5][6]. At the same time, many problems faced in laser technology, including the creation of microlasers, can be resolved through the use of the yttrium-aluminum perovskite (YAlO 3 , YAP) crystals.…”