Picosecond optical vortex converted from multigigahertz self-mode-locked high-order Hermite-Gaussian Nd:GdVO4 lasers

Abstract

We report on a gigahertz self-mode-locked high-order Hermite-Gaussian (HG) Nd:GdVO4 laser. With a pump power of 2.2 W, the average output power for the TEM0,m modes from m=9 to m=0 are among 350-780 mW at a repetition rate of 3.5 GHz. The mode-locked pulse width is in the range of 20-25 ps for various HG TEM0,m modes. With a simple cylindrical-lens converter, the mode-locked HG beams are converted to generate picosecond optical vortex pulses. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America