5.2-W high-repetition-rate eye-safe laser at 1525 nm generated by Nd:YVO 4 –YVO 4 stimulated Raman conversion

We report herein an efficient eye-safe Raman laser, which is based upon Nd:YVO4-YVO4 and in-band pumped by a wavelength-locked laser diode array at 878.6 nm. By virtue of mitigated thermal load and improved pump absorption, a maximum average output power of 5.2 W at 1525 nm is obtained under the incident pump power of 30.6 W with the pulse repetition frequency of 140 kHz, corresponding to an optical efficiency of 17.0%. (C) 2014 Optical Society of America