Passively Q-Switched Dual-Wavelength Laser Operation With Coaxially End-Pumped Composite Laser Materials

Abstract

A passively Q-switched dual-wavelength laser with tunable power ratio and pulse interval is demonstrated based on the coaxial diode end-pumping configuration by varying the pump wavelength. A theoretical model was built by a set of time-domain rate equations illustrating the dynamic process of both the pulse generation of two wavelengths from a shared pump source and a saturable absorber. The simulation showed that both the power ratio and the time interval between the pulses at two resonant wavelengths in the Q-switched mode could be tuned by balancing the gains in two laser crystals by varying the pump wavelength, realized by controlling the working temperature of the pump laser diode. The experiment was performed with Nd:YAG/Nd:YAP composite laser crystals and a Cr4+:YAG slice working as the saturable absorber for pulse generation. The continuous-wave and Q-switched total output power reached 5.62 W and 2.12 W, corresponding to overall optical-optical conversion efficiencies of 37.5% and 14.1%, respectively. The manipulation of power ratio and pulse interval between 1064 nm and 1080 nm agreed well with the simulation results.

Keywords

• Coaxially diode end-pumping
• dual-wavelength laser
• passively Q-switching