[15p-A305-1~11] 3.4 Laser system and materials (formerly 3.5)

▲ [15p-A305-8] Output pulse control of CW pumped Nd:YVO₄/Cr:YAG microchip laser

〇Rakesh Bhandari¹, Shota Sekiguchi¹, Tadashi Hajikano¹, Yuichi Takushima¹ (1.Optoquest Co.)

Keywords:microchip laser, Nd:YVO4 laser

In this paper, we report for the first time, control of the output pulse energy, repetition rate and pulse width of a continuous wave pumped Nd:YVO₄/Cr:YAG microchip laser by controlling the stimulated emission cross-section through the Nd:YVO₄ crystal temperature.
By increasing the Nd:YVO₄ crystal temperature from 25℃ to 45℃, we could increase the pulse energy from 6 μJ to 11 μJ, reduce the repetition rate from 14.5 kHz to 7.3 kHz, and reduce the pulse width from 2.1 ns to 1.6 ns. As a consequence, the peak power increases from 2.8 kW to 6.9 kW, for a 20℃ increase in Nd:YVO₄ crystal temperature.
These results will be very useful to control the output of compact, continuous wave pumped, high repetition rate Nd:YVO₄ lasers.