Continuous-wave operation of a diode-pumped rotating Nd:glass disk laser

Efficient Nd:YAG crystal laser with rotatory pumping

The performance of solid-state laser is limited by the thermal effects in the gain medium. In this study, we investigated the implementation of an efficient short-cavity continuous-wave 1064 nm Nd:YAG solid-state laser by using a rotatory pumping scheme to alleviate the thermal accumulation in the gain medium. With this method, the laser power reached 25.7 W with a slope efficiency of 41.5% at a 10.0-mm pump rotation radius and an optimum rotation rate of 2300 rpm. The influence of rotatory pumping radius and rotation rates was analyzed, and the results indicated that the rotatory pumping would be promising technique for the power scaling of solid-state lasers.

Mode-locked femtosecond laser with a rotary Nd:glass disk

We demonstrate here femtosecond pulses output from a rotary Nd:glass disk laser, mode-locked with semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors. We obtained an average output power of 0.66 W in cw operation and an average output power of 0.49 W with a duration of 324 fs in mode-locked operation in the case of an absorbed pump power of 7.3 W. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that sub-picosecond pulses have been obtained from rotary Nd:glass disk lasers. It shows a new concept for all-solid-state mode-locked glass lasers with high power.