Diode-side-pumped actively Q-switched Nd:YAP/YVO4 multi-Watt first-Stokes laser

A diode-side-pumped actively Q-switched first-Stokes eye-safe laser with a Nd:YAP/YVO4 crystal is reported. Under the pump power of 250 W, a stable Raman laser at 1525 nm with an average output power of 4.5 W and pulse width of 60 ns at the pulse repetition frequency of 4.5 kHz is achieved. Another laser crystal Nd: YAG is used to carry out the contrast experiment. The output performances of these two lasers are measured and compared. The result reveals that the first-stokes Raman laser generated by the Nd:YAP/YVO4 crystal has a lower power threshold and higher Raman conversion efficiency because of the large value of the stimulated emission cross section and the fluorescence lifetime at 1342 nm of the Nd:YAP crystal. (c) 2014 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)