Efficient Fe:CdTe laser producing 0.35 J pulses in the 5 μm spectral range

High-energy laser operation of a Fe2+-doped single-crystal CdTe is demonstrated at the temperature of 77 K. Pumped with 250 mu s pulses of a 4.08 mu m Fe:ZnSe laser, the Fe:CdTe laser produced a record output of 0.35 J, with a slope efficiency of 44%. A further up-scaling by employing high-energy pump sources is feasible, thus facilitating material-processing applications. The laser was tunable from 4.86 to 5.37 mu m. In a nonselective cavity, the laser's central wavelength was 5.03 mu m at 77 K, and shifted to 5.23 mu m at 215 K. At the later operation point, reachable using a Peltier element, the laser still produced 0.15 J of output energy with an efficiency of 22%. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America