Q-switched lasing on a weak transition: new approach

Abstract

This paper discusses an novel strategy in development, design and integration of a high efficient Q-switched laser operating on weak transitions of the lasing media. A typical example of such operation is lasing on the 946 nm transition of Nd-doped medium. The proposed approach enables very effective Q-switched operation on this type of weak transitions with the plug-in efficiency better than 10% at a few ns pulse length, as compared to recently reported less than 1% efficiency at pulse length of about 150 ns.