Ultra compact solid state laser

摘要

We built a small passively Q-switched solid-state laser with a volume of < 8 cm~3 and a weight of < 20 g. The laser is passively Q-switched using a Cr~(4+) YAG saturable absorber to generate pulses < 2 ns. The architecture is applied to different laser crystals such as Nd:YLF and Nd:YVO_4 that produced 2 mJ at 20 Hz and 0.3 mJ at 10 kHz, respectively. The laser is side-pumped by single or stacked diode bars using a unique pump cavity to homogenize the pump intensity in the laser rod as well as make the structure alignment insensitive when subjected to shock, vibration, and thermal cycling. The laser components can easily be modified to change the output wavelength to green, UV, or mid IR.