Pulsed blue laser at 491nm by Nonlinear Cavity Dumping

Emilie Hérault (1) , Mickael Lelek (1) , François Balembois (1) , Patrick Georges (1)

1 Laboratoire Charles Fabry de l'Institut d'Optique / Elsa

A nonlinear cavity dumping process is applied for the first time to generate kW peak power pulses at 491 nm. The system is based on efficient sum-frequency mixing of 1063 nm and 912 nm radiations in a BiBO nonlinear crystal placed inside a Nd:GdVO4 laser oscillator with a high finesse cavity at 912 nm. The nonlinear cavity dumping process is triggered by high peak power nanosecond pulses from a 1063 nm Q- switched Nd:GdVO4 laser operating at 10 kHz. To reach the kW range at 491 nm a key point is to Q-switch the high finesse 912 nm cavity instead of continuous wave operation. Thus, the peak power (9.3 kW for 3 ns pulses) and the average power (280 mW) obtained at 491 nm are 14 times higher than the one obtained when the 912 nm laser operated in continuous wave.

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

Emilie Hérault, Mickael Lelek, François Balembois, Patrick Georges. Pulsed blue laser at 491nm by Nonlinear Cavity Dumping. Optics Express, 2008, 16 (24), pp. 19419-1942. ⟨hal-00533457⟩