High peak power, sub-ps green emission in a passively mode locked W-cavity VECSEL

We report on the experimental results of a passively mode-locked vertical external cavity surface emitting laser (VECSEL), implemented in a W-cavity configuration, using a lithium triborate (LBO) crystal for intra-cavity second harmonic generation (SHG) at 528 nm. The W-cavity configuration allows separation of the crystal from the semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM), enabling independent control over the Gaussian beam sizes at the crystal, chip, and SESAM. This optimized cavity demonstrated a second harmonic pulse width of similar to 760 fs at a frequency of 465 MHz and 230 mW average output power, resulting in a peak pulse power of 580 W. (C) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement