A 200 W diode-side-pumped CW 2 μm Tm:YAG laser with water cooling at 8°C

A water-cooled 785 nm diode-side-pumped high-power CW Tm:YAG laser system at 2 mu m is reported. 200 W output power is achieved with cooling water running at 8A degrees C. As far as we know, this is the highest output power for a diode-pumped all solid-state 2 mu m Tm:YAG laser. The output corresponds to optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 11.2%, with a slope efficiency of about 22.8%. To make the system structure simple, only deionized water is used as the coolant instead of alcohol- or glycol-water mixture or the liquid nitrogen in the reported high-power Tm rod laser experiments, which were performed at low temperature near the freezing point of water, or even below.