Abstract

Several drawbacks of a cw-pumped mode-locked Nd:LiYF₄ laser are outlined, and it is shown how to overcome them. For the first time, attention is paid to thermally induced astigmatism and its compensation in a Nd:LiYF₄ rod. An optimized system generates an average output power similar to that of a typical Nd:YAG laser, however, with an increased stability and with pulse durations that are significantly shorter. The higher peak power in Nd:LiYF₄ can result in a higher conversion efficiency in a frequency-doubling process, provided the doubling crystal can handle the high average power. It will be demonstrated that a well-engineered Nd:LiYF₄ system may become the preferred choice for many applications, including seeding regenerative amplifiers and pumping synchronously mode-locked dye laser oscillators and amplifiers.

© 1988 Optical Society of America

High power harmonically mode-locked cw-pumped Nd:YAG laser

Alfred P. DeFonzo, Neil Gitkind, Charles R. Lutz, and Thomas A. Kuchta
Appl. Opt. 27(17) 3604-3607 (1988)

Picosecond laser system continuously tunable in the 0.6–4-μm range

Herman Vanherzeele
Appl. Opt. 29(15) 2246-2258 (1990)

Thermal lensing measurement and compensation in a continuous-wave mode-locked Nd:YLF laser

Herman Vanherzeele
Opt. Lett. 13(5) 369-371 (1988)

High-power cw 671 nm output by intracavity frequency doubling of a double-end-pumped Nd:YVO₄ laser

Ai-Yun Yao, Wei Hou, Yong Bi, Ai-Cong geng, Xue-Chun Lin, Yu-Peng Kong, Da-Fu Cui, Ling-An Wu, and Zu-Yan Xu
Appl. Opt. 44(33) 7156-7160 (2005)

Tunable subpicosecond dye laser amplified at 1 kHz by a cavity-dumped, Q-switched, and mode-locked Nd:YAG laser

Vincent J. Newell, F. W. Deeg, S. R. Greenfield, and M. D. Fayer
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 6(2) 257-263 (1989)