High efficiency Tm:YAG slab laser with hundred-watts-level output power

We report on a hundred-watts-level high power Tm:YAG slab laser system operating at room temperature. The laser has a threshold pump power of 46.7 W, benefiting from the good mode matching of an end-pumping scheme and the excellent heat-dissipation capability of our cooling system. At 350 W of incident pump power, 100 W of output power at similar to 2015 nm has been generated, corresponding to a slope efficiency of 33.6% with respect to the incident pump power and an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 28.6%. As far as we know, this is the highest optical-to-optical conversion efficiency so far achieved in a high power Tm:YAG laser system operating at a hundred-watts level. (C) 2016 Optical Society of America