High repetition rate, high peak power acousto-optical Q-switched 946 nm Nd:YAG laser

Abstract

A diode-end-pumped high repetition rate, high peak power acousto-optical (AO) Q-switched 946 nm Nd:YAG laser was demonstrated in this paper. In our experiments, a 20 mm miniature acousto-optical Q-switch was employed in a 45 mm linear laser cavity for generating the short laser pulse. At a repetition rate of 10 kHz, a maximum average output power of 2.9 W was achieved with a pulse width of 24.4 ns, giving a peak power of 11.9 kW. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest peak power 946 nm Nd:YAG laser at high repetition rate operation. Moreover, pulse train with good stability was also obtained at the repetition rate of 50 kHz. At an incident pump power of 22.3 W, up to an average output power of 3.5 W pulsed 946 nm laser was generated at 50 kHz with a pulse width of 69 ns, corresponding to an optical conversion efficiency of 15.7% and an average slope efficiency of 24.1%, respectively.