Study of Yb:YVO4 lasers end-pumped by a 985-nm diode laser

Abstract

Efficient continuous wave operation is demonstrated at room temperature with a Yb:YVO 4 laser end pumped by a 985 nm diode. An output power of 2.46 W is generated at the highest available absorbed pump power of 6.2 W, with an optical to optical and slope efficiency of 40 and 76%, respectively. A theoret ical calculation of the laser characteristics agrees closely with the experimental results.

Efficient high-energy passively Q-switched Yb:GdCa4O(BO3)3 laser

“…Such a nonlinearity will become less pronounced when the total losses are increased, just as is shown for the case of T 0 94.4%. In fact, the nonlinear relationship of output versus input is an intrinsic feature of a quasi-three-level laser, as predicted by theoretical modeling based on the space-dependent rate equations [9], and it has been frequently encountered in some Yb lasers like Yb-doped vanadate lasers [10,11]. It should be pointed out that the unabsorbed pump power had little effect on this nonlinearity.…”

Passive Q-Switching Laser Performance of Yb:YVO 4 Crystal

“…In fact, even in the continuouswave (cw) regime, the maximum output power generated from longitudinally pumped Yb:YVO 4 lasers was merely at the ∼7 W level. [3,4] For Q-switched operation, only very preliminary work was conducted on the passive Q-switching laser action of Yb:YVO 4 in its early stage, in which the average output power produced was about 0.55 W, with Raman-shifted component (at ∼1120 nm) included. [5] In this previously reported work, however, no information was presented on the laser emission spectrum, laser pulse shape, pulse amplitude fluctuations, timing jitters, etc., all of which are necessary to fully characterize a passively Q-switched laser based on a Yb crystal having a broad emission spectrum.…”