Comparative study on enhancement of self-Q-switched Cr,Yb:YAG lasers by bonding Yb:YAG ceramic and crystal

✍ Scribed by J. Dong; J. Ma; Y. Cheng; Y.Y. Ren; K. Ueda; A.A. Kaminskii

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 177 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1612-2011
• DOI: 10.1002/lapl.201110080

✦ Synopsis

Enhancement of laser-diode pumped self-Qswitched Cr, Ca, and Yb 3+ ions co-doped YAG (Cr,Yb:YAG) lasers by bonding Yb:YAG ceramic to increase pump power absorption efficiency have been demonstrated for the first time to our best knowledge. Efficient Cr,Yb:YAG self-Q-switched laser performance has been achieved by bonding Yb:YAG ceramic. The effect of transmission of output coupler (T OC ) on the laser performance has been investigated and found that the best laser performance was achieved with TOC = 20% for Yb:YAG ceramic. Slope efficiency of 20% was achieved with T OC = 20% for Cr,Yb:YAG self-Q-switched laser by bonding Yb:YAG ceramic. Maximum average output power of 683 mW was measured at absorbed pump power of 4.5 W; the corresponding optical-to-optical efficiency is 15.2%. The output laser pulse characteristics were compared for Cr,Yb:YAG self-Q-switched lasers by bonding Yb:YAG ceramic and crystal under different transmission of output coupler. For the same T OC , the laser performance of Cr,Yb:YAG self-Q-switched lasers by bonding Yb:YAG ceramic is better than that by bonding Yb:YAG crystal. Average output power, W 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 5 4 3 2 1 0 Absorbed pump power, W Yb:YAG ceramic:

T oc = 10%, η s = 13% T oc = 20%, η s = 20% T oc = 30%, η s = 16% Yb:YAG crystal:

T oc = 10%, η s = 5% T oc = 20%, η s = 14% T oc = 30%, η s = 18%

Average output power of Cr,Yb:YAG self-Q-switched lasers by bonding Yb:YAG ceramic and crystal as a function of the absorbed pump power