Jean Paul Pocholle

High-efficiency TEM 00 Nd:YVO 4 laser longitudinally pumped by a high-power array

A new simple, compact, and efficient optical device is presented that allows any commercially available arrays or stacks to longitudinally pump laser materials. A Nd:YVO(4) laser was built and an optical-optical efficiency as great as 50% was demonstrated with a diffraction-limited beam.

High-efficiency TEM{sub 00} Nd:YVO{sub 4} laser longitudinally pumped by a high-power array

A new simple, compact, and efficient optical device is presented that allows any commercially available arrays or stacks to longitudinally pump laser materials. A Nd:YVO(4) laser was built and an optical-optical efficiency as great as 50% was demonstrated with a diffraction-limited beam.

Efficient degenerate four-wave mixing in a diode-pumped microchipNd:YVO 4 amplifier

The process of saturable-gain degenerate four-wave mixing in a diode-pumped microchip Nd:YVO(4) amplifier is investigated. To enhance the efficiency of the interaction, multipass geometries are employed in which the weak signal beam and therefore the conjugate beam experience several passes in the gain medium. Degenerate fourwave mixing reflectivities as high as R = 10% and R = 170% have been obtained experimentally for 130-W diode pumping with two-pass and four-pass geometries, respectively. Finally, the imaging capabilities of the volume population hologram written in the Nd:YVO(4) amplifier are demonstrated.

Self-pumped phase-conjugate diode-pumped Nd:YAG loop resonator

We demonstrate a self-pumped phase-conjugate diode-pumped Nd:YAG loop resonator. In the injected configuration a maximum phase-conjugate reflectivity of 32 is obtained. The output beam has a pulse shape of ~30 ns , which shows the self- Q -switching ability of the resonator. By use of a low-refractive-output coupler, a self-starting version was produced. The resonator operated in a stable diffraction-limited TEM(00) mode, even with severe intracavity phase aberrations. A maximum energy of 5.5 mJ (2.4% of the energy of the high-brightness stacks that was incident upon the Nd:YAG crystals) in a 20-ns single-longitudinal-mode pulse was measured.

8-mJ TEM 00 diode-end-pumped frequency-quadrupled Nd:YAG laser

A frequency-quadrupled Nd:YAG laser pumped by a commercially available high-brightness stack is described. A master oscillator power amplifier configuration was implanted, and the laser delivered energy of 8 mJ at 0.266microm . The laser was air cooled for easy use.

Large-field-of-view, high-gain, compact diode-pumped Nd:YAG amplifier

We present a compact diode-end-pumped Nd:YAG amplifier with a FWHM angular bandwidth of 100 degrees . Using a 1.064-microm probe beam, we measured a 2-pass gain of 23 (13.6dB) and a 4-pass gain of 420 (26.2dB). High-gain image amplification with such a laser amplifier is also demonstrated.

High-efficiency intracavity-doubled diode-end-pumped Nd:YVO4 laser

A high-brightness component is used to longitudinally pump Nd:YAG and Nd:YVO4 crystals. The light is focused by a simple, compact and efficient nonimaging concentrator. A 50% at 1.064 micrometer and a 25% at 0.532 micrometer optical-optical efficiencies were demonstrated with a near TEM00 beam.

TEM00 SURFACE-EMITTING LASER-DIODE LONGITUDINALLY PUMPED ND:YVO4 LASER

We have demonstrated what is to our knowledge the first Nd:YVO4 laser longitudinally pumped by a surface-emitting laser diode. An optical/optical efficiency of 32% was obtained with a nearly diffraction-limited beam.