Numerical solution and experiment of a self-Q-switched 946 nm Cr,Nd:YAG laser

Abstract

A LD-pumped self-Q-switched 946 nm laser by using a co-doped Cr,Nd:YAG crystal as a gain medium as well as a saturable absorber is studied. The 946 nm self-Q-switched rate equations of co-doped crystal are solved numerically by Runge-Kutta method directly. The important parameters of lasers, such as average output power, threshold pump power, pulse width, pulses repetition rate, and optimal transmission of output coupler are obtained numerically. Experimentally, the maximum average output power up to 2.61 W, corresponding to a slope efficiency of 23.43%, was obtained in a simple and compact linear cavity. The optical-to-optical efficiency is 17.3% and the peak power is 7.57 kW with repetition rate of 23.78 kHz and pulse width of 14.5 ns. In the experiments, a high-quality fundamental transverse mode can be preserved in a large range of incident pump power. The numerical results of the 946 nm self-Q-switched Cr,Nd:YAG laser are in good agreement with the experimental results.