Efficient continuous-wave eye-safe Nd:YVO<sub>4</sub> self-Raman laser at 1.5 µm
Fan Li, Jun Shen, Xiaoyu Wang, Huibo Fan, Jun Zhu, Xi‐Lin Wang, Hui‐Tian Wang
Abstract
Due to a high Raman threshold and serious thermal effect, a challenge is to achieve efficient continuous-wave (CW) operation of a crystalline Raman laser at 1.5 µm. Based on effective thermal management and the self-Raman effect, we demonstrate, to our knowledge, the first efficient CW operation of a <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">N</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">d</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mo>:</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Y</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">V</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">O</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>4</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> Raman laser at 1.5 µm. We achieve 685 mW of CW eye-safe emission at 1524.5 nm by the use of a 20-mm-long composite <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">N</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">d</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mo>:</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:msub> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">Y</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">V</mml:mi> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">O</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>4</mml:mn> </mml:msub> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> and 300-µm pump beam radius, with a diode-to-Stokes conversion efficiency of 4.8%. Lasers operating at <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mo>∼</mml:mo> </mml:mrow> <mml:mn>1.5</mml:mn> <mml:mspace width="thickmathspace"/> <mml:mtext>µ</mml:mtext> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="normal">m</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> </mml:math> have found many important applications in various areas such as optical communication, laser radar, laser ranging, remote sensing, and spectral research.