Passively Q-Switched Yb : Y2o3 Ceramic Laser With A Gaas Output Coupler

We report on the experimental studies of a diode-end-pumped passively Q-switched Yb:Y2O3 ceramic laser with a GaAs wafer simultaneously as saturable absorber and output coupler. The Q-switched operation of the laser has an average output power of 0.51 W with a 17.7-W incident pump power. The Q-switched pulses with pulse energy of 7.7 muJ have been achieved. The minimum pulse width is measured to be about 50 ns with a repetition rate of 52.6 KHz. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration on a passively Q-switched Yb:Y2O3 ceramic laser. (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.