High-power ultraviolet 278 nm laser from fourth-harmonic generation of a Nd:YAG laser in CsB_3O_5

Abstract

We demonstrate a high-power UV 278 nm laser by fourth-harmonic generation (FHG) of a 1112 nm Nd:YAG laser in a nonlinear optical (NLO) crystal CsB3O5 (CBO) for the first time, to our best knowledge. A 30 W level diode-pumped Q-switched Nd:YAG laser at 1112 nm with beam quality factor M2=1.2 was used as the fundamental light source at a pulse width of 500 ns. With an LiB3O5 crystal, the 1112 nm laser was first frequency-doubled to 556 nm with an average output power of 13.5 W. It was then frequency doubled again in a CBO crystal to obtain the FHG output at 278 nm. The maximum average output power of the 278 nm laser is up to 1.5 W. The results demonstrated that CBO crystal is a promising NLO material for UV high-power lasers below 300 nm.