Fe:ZnSe lasers have been pumped by several types of diode-pumped solid state laser, including Cr:Er:YSGG (2800 nm),¹ Cr:CdSe (2970 nm),² and Er:YAG (2698 nm,³ 2936 nm⁴). None of these sources has exceeded 1.5 W of true continuous-wave (CW) output power. In this work, we report demonstration of a CW Fe:ZnSe laser pumped by a 10 W Er:Y₂O₃ laser emitting at 2740 nm,⁵ which had not been previously attempted. The Er:Y₂O₃ pump laser was characterized with respect to propagation losses, beam quality, mode size, and pointing stability. It was determined that the limit of output power from the Fe:ZnSe laser was limited by the output stability of the pump laser. The Fe:ZnSe laser operated with < 22% slope efficiency and 800 mW output power was achieved at approximately 4050 nm.

Date Published: 20 February 2015
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 9342, Solid State Lasers XXIV: Technology and Devices, 93420F (20 February 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2079757

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9342:
Solid State Lasers XXIV: Technology and Devices
W. Andrew Clarkson; Ramesh K. Shori, Editor(s)