High-pulse energy Q-switched Tm3+:YAG laser for nonlinear frequency conversion to the mid-IR

Georg Stöppler; Christelle Kieleck; Marc Eichhorn

doi:10.1117/12.864435

12 October 2010 High-pulse energy Q-switched Tm³⁺:YAG laser for nonlinear frequency conversion to the mid-IR

Georg Stöppler, Christelle Kieleck, Marc Eichhorn

Proceedings Volume 7836, Technologies for Optical Countermeasures VII; 783609 (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.864435
Event: SPIE Security + Defence, 2010, Toulouse, France

Abstract

For some medical fields in laser surgery and as a pump source for nonlinear materials to generate mid-IR radiation, e.g. for countermeasure applications, it is very useful to have a solid-state laser with high pulse energy at 2 μm. The rare earth ion Thulium offers a cross relaxation and can thus be directly diode pumped with common laser diodes around 800 nm for an efficient pumping. However, it was not considered for high pulse energy operation due to the high saturation fluence of around 62 J/cm² at 2 μm. A limiting factor has always been the damage threshold of the optical elements inside the cavity. One of the reasons is the strong thermal lens of YAG, which affects a change of the beam radius inside the resonator and additionally degrades the beam quality with increasing pump power. Using a new pump geometry of the Tm³⁺:YAG laser system, it is now possible to reach pulse energies > 13 mJ at a diffraction limited beam quality of M² < 1.1. The Q-switched Tm³⁺:YAG laser system uses an AOM operating at 100 Hz and will be described in detail. Due to the high pulse energy and very good beam quality, this laser is very interesting for nonlinear parametric frequency conversion.

Citation Download Citation

Georg Stöppler, Christelle Kieleck, and Marc Eichhorn "High-pulse energy Q-switched Tm³⁺:YAG laser for nonlinear frequency conversion to the mid-IR", Proc. SPIE 7836, Technologies for Optical Countermeasures VII, 783609 (12 October 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.864435

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