Efficient and high beam quality operation of a diode-side-pumped Nd:YAG quasi-cw laser

摘要

We have demonstrated a highly efficient quasi-cw Nd:YAG laser with a novel side pumping configuration using micro-lens free diode-stacks. Laser power of 320W was obtained with 28percent electric-to-optical efficiency from a single rod. 28 percent of the electrical-to-optical efficiency is, to our knowledge, the highest value ever reported for diode-pumped solid-state lasers. We also demonstrated a high brightness operation by introducing a bifocusing compensation resonator with two pump modules. Output power of 500 W with the beam quality factor M~2 < 5 was obtained, where the electric-to-optical efficiency was 20 percent.