High-efficiency continuous wave operation of a Ho:GdVO4 laser at room temperature

Abstract

An efficient 2 μm room temperature Ho:GdVO4 laser pumped by a 1.94 μm Tm-fiber laser is demonstrated. In this letter, for the first time, to our knowledge, up to 11.2 W output power at 2047.9 nm was obtained at the absorbed pump power of 34.3 W with a slope efficiency of 40.1%. The output beam quality of the M2 factor with of 1.17 and of 1.11 at 10 W output level were measured.