Modeling and CW operation of a quasi-three-level 946 nm Nd: YAG laser

Tso Fan Tso Fan,R Byer

doi:10.1109/jqe.1987.1073371

Abstract

A model is developed for an end-pumped quasi-three-level laser with population in the lower laser level at equilibrium such as for transitions to the manifolds 4 I <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">9/2</inf> in Nd 3+ , 4 I <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">15/2</inf> in Er 3+ , 5 I <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">8</inf> in Ho 3+ and 3 H <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">6</inf> in Tm 3+ . It is shown that the effect of residual lower laser level population on laser operation can be treated as a saturable loss. Room temperature operation on the 4 F <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3/2</inf> - 4 I <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">9/2</inf> transition in Nd:YAG under CW dye laser pumping has been demonstrated with a threshold as low as 11.5 mW incident power and a slope efficiency of 7 percent with 0.3 percent output coupling. Performance is limited by the low output coupling and diffraction loss.

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