Continuous-Wave And Passively Q-Switched Tape Casting Yag/Nd:Yag/Yag Ceramic Laser

A composite YAG/Nd:YAG/YAG ceramic was fabricated and the laser performance was investigated in this paper. It was proved to have a better thermal diffusion ability when compared to a traditional non-composite Nd:YAG ceramic. In a continuous-wave operation, the maximum output power was 8.2 W for a YAG/Nd:YAG/YAG ceramic laser with Nd3+ ion concentrations of 1 at%, and that for a traditional Nd: YAG ceramic laser was 6.5 W. For the laser beam quality factor measurement, it was found to be 1.6 and 1.7 for horizontal and vertical directions, respectively, for a YAG/Nd:YAG/YAG ceramic laser at an absorbed incident power of 13.5 W, and for a Nd:YAG ceramic laser it was 2.6 and 2.8, respectively. In the passively Q-switched operation, at an absorbed pump power of 19 W, the average output power and pulse energy for Cr4+:YAG crystal with an initial transmission of T-0 = 80% and T-0 = 85% was 3.25 W, 59.4 mu J and 4.14 W, 54.8 mu J, respectively. The pulse width was about 11 ns and 15.5 ns for Cr4+:YAG crystal with T-0 = 80% and T-0 = 85%, respectively. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America