High-power Nd:YAP blue laser by intracavity summing frequency

Abstract

Recently, continue-wave blue laser generated by frequency doubling of the diode-end pumped neodymium doped lasers operating at the 4 F 3/2 → 4 I 9/2 transition have been extensively explored. But this way is limited by the considerable re-absorption loss caused by thermal population of the lower laser level for the oscillation of quasi-three-level laser. Another efficient way to obtain blue laser is based on summing frequency of the neodymium doped laser operating at the 4 F 3/2 → 4 I1 3/2 transition. Unlike the three-level system of the 4 F 3/2 → 4 I 9/2 transition, stimulated emission at the 4 F 3/2 → 4 I1 3/2 transition is a four-level system that can provide a low-threshold and stable laser output due to the lack of sensitive temperature dependence of the transition rate. High power blue laser has been achieved in this way. In this paper, we report a high power blue laser output is obtained by intracavity sum-frequency-mixing of a diode-side-pumped Q-switched Nd:YAP laser operating at 1.3μm with two LBO crystals. An LBO crystal with type-I critical phase matching and the other crystal with type-II critical phase matching were used for the second harmonic generation and the third harmonic generation, respectively. In view of the analysis of the cavity stability, a four-mirror folded cavity was designed and the output characteristics were theoretically analyzed. Experimental characteristics obtained were shown to be in agreement with the theoretical analysis. 3.2W average power at 447nm and 1.3W average power at 446nm blue laser outputs were achieved at 1kHz with pulse width of 10ns from the 1341.4nm laser beam polarized along the c crystalline axis and the 1339.2nm laser beam polarized along the a crystalline axis, respectively. The 447nm blue laser corresponds to a red-to-blue conversion efficiency of 30%.