Design and Characterization of a diode-pumped Nd: YAG retro reflecting slab laser
- West Virginia Univ., Morgantown, WV
Effective use of Nd: YAG lasers in remote, in situ sensing and other applications require compact size and efficient operation. A miniaturized chip scale Nd: YAG slab laser was developed and its lasing characteristics determined. The Nd: YAG laser slab utilizes a retro reflecting corner and total internal reflection to achieve a 17cm active media path length with slab dimensions of 10mmx12mmx2mm. The laser was constructed, tested and shown to successfully lase at 1064nm under edge pumping with an AlGaAs diode laser at 808nm. The slab laser was operated in a pulsed-pump excitation mode and shown to support a TEM10 single output mode. The fluence achievable from the edge pumping of this initial cavity geometry resulted in a 6.0% experimentally measured lasing efficiency. The current work will be discussed which includes a further reduction of the size of these slab lasers to 3mmx10mmx1.4mm and the incorporation of a passive Q-switch for high peak powers and a non linear crystal for frequency doubling. Furthermore, we discusses strategies under evaluation for hybrid integration of the slab laser system on a single substrate. This reduction of size will make them attractive candidates for compact laser sources in applications such as Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), laser-based spark plug systems, and Raman excitation-based integrated sensor systems.
- Research Organization:
- National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, Morgantown, WV, and Albany, OR (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE - Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
- OSTI ID:
- 913402
- Report Number(s):
- DOE/NETL-IR-2007-125
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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