Our femtosecond VECSELs have generated 1.05 W average output power. Numerical simulations have been successfully used to gain a better understanding, but initially have not predicted the average output power correctly. Only after we directly determined the correct gain parameters we got very good agreement. Numerical simulations show that weak gain saturation is beneficial for high-power operation. With a high-precision reflectivity measurement setup we measured the nonlinear change in reflectivity of the optically-pumped (OP) VECSEL gain chip as function of the incident pulse fluence, pump intensity, and heat-sink temperature. We also determined the small signal gain and the gain bandwidth.

Date Published: 18 February 2013
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 8606, Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VECSELs) III, 860606 (18 February 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2002507

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8606:
Vertical External Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VECSELs) III
Jennifer E. Hastie, Editor(s)