Abstract
Performance data for a laser diode pumped cw Nd:BEL laser is presented. Two phased laser diode arrays are used as the pump source, each emitting 500 mW. The heat sink for the arrays is temperature controlled to allow for wavelength tunability. A Nd:YAG rod was pumped under similar conditions and the results are compared. Although the absorption bandwidth for Nd:BEL is substantially broader than for Nd:YAG, the Nd:BEL was found to have a higher threshold for lasing. Both rods gave slope efficiencies of 42%. The dependence of the output power on output mirror reflectivity was measured, with Nd:BEL showing a greater sensitivity to reflectivity than Nd:YAG. The optimum reflectivities were found to be .98 and .97 for Nd:BEL and Nd:YAG respectively. The maximum TEMOO cw power achieved for each rod at these reflectivities was 250 mW for Nd:BEL and 283 mW for Nd:YAG. The observed electrical to optical conversion efficiency was factored into a product of analytic component terms and excellent agreement was found between observed and calculated efficiencies. We conclude that under the conditions used in this work, both BEL and YAG hosts perform comparably.
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