Diode-pumped efficient high-power cascade Tm:GdVO4 laser simultaneously operating at ∼2 μm and ∼2.3 μm.

Abstract

The laser diode (LD)-pumped efficient high-power cascade Tm:GdVO4 laser simultaneously operating on the 3F4 → 3H6 (at ∼2 μm) and 3H4 → 3H5 (at ∼2.3 μm) Tm3+ transition was first reported in this paper. The cascade Tm:GdVO4 laser generated a maximum total continuous-wave (CW) laser output power of 8.42 W with a slope efficiency of 40%, out of which the maximum ∼2.3 μm CW laser output power was 2.88 W with a slope efficiency of 14%. To our knowledge, 2.88 W is the highest CW laser output power amongst the LD-CW-pumped ∼2.3 μm Tm3+-doped lasers reported so far.