Efficient cw Nd:LuVO₄-BiBO dee-bluelaser

Nd:LuVO4, has attracted much attention because its larger absorption and emission cross sections than Nd:YVO4 and Nd:GdVO4. A more efficient pumping method was presented and researched, which was to pump the Nd3+ ions directly into the 4F3/2 upper lasing level to improve the laser parameters such as decreasing the threshold and increasing the slope efficiency and reduce the amount of heat generated by the nonradiative processes. In this paper, the report a quas-thre-level Nd:LuVO4 laser which is directly pumped by a laser diode at 888 nm. Achieved an output power of 2.5W at 916 nm for an incident pump power of 18.6W. The incident pump power at threshold of laser oscillation was 4.7 W, corresponding to the slope efficiency with respect to the incident pump power was 17.8%. For the same incident pump power, a maximum blue output power was 743 mW. The stability of the blue output power was better than 3%. The beam quality M2 value is 1.12.