Highly Efficient Cw Operation Of A Diode Pumped Nd:Y2o3 Ceramic Laser

High efficiency continuous-wave laser operation of an in-house made Nd:Y2O3 ceramic was demonstrated. The Nd:Y2O3 laser ceramic was fabricated by vacuum sintering plus the hot isostatic pressing process, whose in-line transmittance reaches 81.6% at the wavelength of 1000 nm. The 1.08 and 1.36 mu m CW laser oscillation of an uncoated ceramic sample was experimentally investigated. Both achieved the highest slope efficiency and output power so far reported for the Nd:Y2O3 ceramic lasers. For the operation of( 4)F(3/)(2)-I-4(11/2) transitions. simultaneous oscillations at 1074.6 nm and 1078.8 nm were observed. At an absorbed pump power of 7.0 W, a maximum output power of 3.01 W was obtained with a slope efficiency of 49.6%. For the laser operation of F-4(3/2)-I-4(13/2) transitions, a 1.68 W single wavelength at 1357.7 nm with the slope efficiency of 29.3% was achieved at the absorbed pump power of 6.7 W. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement