Stable 10,000-hour operation of 20-W deep ultraviolet laser generation at 266 nm

We report 10,000-hour stable operation of a 266-nm picosecond laser with an average power of 20 W. We have developed a narrow-linewidth, high-peak-power 1064-nm laser source with a repetition rate of 600 kHz, an average power of 129 W, a linewidth of 0.15 nm, and a pulse duration of 14 ps using a gain-switched DFB-LD as a picosecond pulse seed source and a four-stage power amplifier with an Nd:YVO4 crystal. A 266-nm laser with a maximum average power of 25.4 W was generated by frequency conversion using LBO and CLBO crystals and had a pulse duration of 8 ps and beam quality factor of 1.5 at 20W. To the best of our knowledge, we also demonstrated that the average power and the beam quality can be maintained for 10,000 hours for the first time. We have confirmed the durability of the developed deep ultraviolet laser for industrial applications. (C) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement

Automated summary

This study reports the stable operation of a 266-nm picosecond laser with an average power of 20 W for 10,000 hours. They developed a narrow-linewidth, high-peak-power 1064-nm laser source and achieved frequency conversion to generate a 266-nm laser with an average power of 25.4 W. The durability of the deep ultraviolet laser for industrial applications was confirmed.