High-power diode-end-pumped passively mode-locked Nd : YVO4 laser with a relaxed saturable Bragg reflector

Abstract

We present an efficient diode-end-pumped passively mode-locked Nd:YVO4 laser with a relaxed single-quantum-well saturable Bragg reflector (SBR), which average output power is more than 23 W and pulse duration 21.5 ps cw mode-locking is generated corresponding to 50 W pumping power. The overall optical-optical efficiency reaches 47% and to our knowledge, this is the highest conversion efficiency ever reported for passively mode-locked laser with average output power over 20 W. In this experiment, the broad absorption spectrum of the relaxed SBR leads a mode-locking operation to less sensitive to temperature variation. The output power corresponding to the transition from cw operation to QML and QML to CWML were also investigated. We believe the high reliability and stability of this mode-locked laser with a relaxed SBR will be interesting in laser application.