High peak power, high repetition rate electro-optically Q-switched Nd:GdTaO4 1066 nm laser

Abstract

In this work, we reported an electro-optically Q-switched Nd:GdTaO4 1066 nm laser under 879 nm laser diode pumping. Pulsed laser output at 1066 nm with a pulse width of 5.7 ns, a single pulse energy of 352 μJ and a peak power of 61.75 kW was obtained at 1 kHz when the pump pulse energy was 4.5 mJ. At a repetition rate of 2 kHz, the 45.4 kW peak power was achieved with a pulse width of 6.2 ns and a single pulse energy of 281 μJ. The optical-to-optical conversion efficiency was 8.1%. The beam quality factors of 2 kHz 1066 nm laser were measured to be M2x = 1.29, M2y = 1.21 at a pump pulse energy of 3.3 mJ by using the traveling 90/10 knife-edge method.