Abstract

We design and demonstrate a thermally stable four-mirror discrete-component planar ring cavity for $Q$-switched laser output. An 880 nm fiber-coupled laser diode is used to pump a-cut $\mathrm{Nd}\text{:}{\mathrm{YVO}}_4$ directly. A magnetic rotation glass (MR3-2) inserted into a permanent cylinder magnet, in combination with a half-wave plate and the polarized emission properties of $\mathrm{Nd}\text{:}{\mathrm{YVO}}_4$, is used to obtain unidirectional laser operation. With this setup, for a pump power of 5 W, 2.75 W of continuous 1064 nm single-frequency laser output is obtained. Next, a Cr:YAG with small signal transmittance of 75% is inserted in between the two concave mirrors where the beam waist is located. Consequently, a passive $Q$-switching single-frequency linear polarization pulse with an average power of 1.02 W, pulse width of 60 ns, frequency of 21 kHz, peak power of 810 W, and single-pulse energy of 48 μJ is obtained. Further, we also propose a new method of using a Fabry–Perot (FP) scanning interferometer to observe high-repetition rate $Q$-switched pulse output longitudinal-mode signals.

© 2016 Optical Society of America

High-efficiency generation of 355  nm radiation by a diode-end-pumped passively Q-switched Nd:YAG/Nd:YVO₄ laser

Bin Li, Bing Sun, and Huaiyu Mu
Appl. Opt. 55(10) 2474-2477 (2016)

Passively Q-switched single-frequency Nd:YVO₄ ring laser with external feedback

Jacopo Rubens Negri, Federico Pirzio, and Antonio Agnesi
Opt. Express 26(9) 11903-11908 (2018)

Efficient passive Q-switching operation of a diode-pumped Nd:GdVO₄ laser with a Cr⁴⁺:YAG saturable absorber

Junhai Liu, Bernd Ozygus, Suhui Yang, Jürgen Erhard, Ute Seelig, Adalbert Ding, Horst Weber, Xianlin Meng, Li Zhu, Lianjie Qin, Chenlin Du, Xinguang Xu, and Zongshu Shao
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 20(4) 652-661 (2003)

High power 2 MHz passively Q-switched nanosecond Nd:YVO₄/Cr⁴⁺:YAG 914 nm laser

Xin Yu, Renpeng Yan, Xudong Li, Yufei Ma, Deying Chen, and Junhua Yu
Appl. Opt. 51(14) 2728-2732 (2012)

Passively Q-switched Nd:YAG ring lasers with high average output power in single-frequency operation

I. Freitag, A. Tünnermann, and H. Welling
Opt. Lett. 22(10) 706-708 (1997)