Using excellent host of Gadolinium Vanadate (GdVO₄), Tm³⁺:GdVO₄ laser has many advantages, such as high heat conductivity, little thermal effect, large stimulated emission cross-section, and low laser oscillation threshold. And due to its stronger and broader absorption spectrum in the 800 nm region, highly-efficient AlGaAs laser-diode (LD) can be adopted as pump source. In this paper, the properties of various kinds of Tm³⁺-doped laser crystals are compared in the first place. Then by describing the energy transmission process of Tm³⁺-doped system at the 2 μm band and establishing the quasi-three-level rate equation, we obtain the expression of threshold pump power and slope efficiency. Moreover, considering thermal lens effect of GdVO₄, the three-mirror folded resonator is analysed using the method of transmission matrix and optimized numerically. A low-threshold, high-power, and good-stability LD double-end pumping Tm³⁺:GdVO₄ solid-state laser is designed by the guidance of the optimized resonator parameters. We obtained a fundamental mode 1920 nm laser output.

Date Published: 25 November 2009
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 7506, 2009 International Conference on Optical Instruments and Technology: Optical Systems and Modern Optoelectronic Instruments, 75061H (25 November 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.838077

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7506:
2009 International Conference on Optical Instruments and Technology: Optical Systems and Modern Optoelectronic Instruments
Yongtian Wang; Yunlong Sheng; Kimio Tatsuno, Editor(s)