Diode-pumped doubly Q-switched mode-locked YVO
4
/Nd:YVO
4
/KTP green
laser with AO and GaAs saturable absorber
Yan Zhang, Shengzhi Zhao
⇑
, Dechun Li, Kejian Yang, Guiqiu Li, Gang Zhang, Kang Cheng
School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
article info
Article history:
Received 1 February 2010
Received in revised form 9 August 2010
Accepted 14 September 2010
Available online 29 October 2010
Keywords:
YVO
4
/Nd:YVO
4
crystal
Q-switched and mode-locked
Frequency doubling
Modulation depth
abstract
By using both acousto-optic modulator and GaAs saturable absorber, a diode-pumped Q-switched and
mode-locked(QML) YVO
4
/Nd:YVO
4
/KTP green laser is presented. The experimental results show that
the doubly QML YVO
4
/Nd:YVO
4
/KTP green laser has good stability and nearly 100% modulation depth.
The average output power and the pulse width of the Q-switched envelope have been measured. The
mode-locked pulse inside the Q-switched envelope has a repetition rate of 137 MHz and its pulse width
is estimated to be about 280 ps. By using a hyperbolic secant square function and considering the
Gaussian distribution of the intracavity photon density, the coupled equations for diode-pumped dual-
loss-modulated QML green laser is given and the numerical solutions of the equations are in good agree-
ment with the experimental results.
Ó 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Simultaneously Q-switched and mode-locked(QML) laser
sources at 532 nm have wide applications in medical and the other
fields, such as coherent telecommunications, information storage,
displays, micromachining and remote sensing, etc. [1]. This kind
of laser resource can be generated by inserting a nonlinear crystal
into a simultaneously passively QML lasers with Cr
4+
:YAG or GaAs
saturable absorber working at the fundamental wavelength of
1.06
l
m [2,3]. However, the singly passively QML green lasers have
the poor shot-to-shot stability and reproducibility, and the modu-
lation depth can not reach 100% [4]. To improve the stability of the
singly passively QML lasers, by simultaneously using both the ac-
tive modulator and the passive saturable absorption, the doubly
QML lasers have been employed [5,6], in which the repetition rate
of the Q-switched envelope is controlled by the active modulator
while the mode-locked pulses lying underneath a Q-switched
envelope depend on both the actively modulated loss and the sat-
urable absorption. The experimental results show that the doubly
QML 1.06
l
m-lasers with the active acousto-optic modulator and
the passive saturable absorption can generate the more stable
pulses with the higher peak power than that of the singly passively
QML 1.06
l
m-lasers with the saturable absorber. As far as we
known However, the simultaneously QML intracavity-frequency-
doubled green lasers haven’t been reported.
Nd:YVO
4
has been extensively used as laser media due to its
high absorption coefficient, broad absorption peak, large stimu-
lated emission cross section, linearly polarized output, etc. More-
over, by using KTP as intracavity-frequency-doubled crystal, the
doubled Q-switched Nd:YVO
4
green laser and the continuous-
wave passively mode-locked Nd:YVO
4
green laser have been dem-
onstrated [7,8]. However, because of the weak thermal conduction
of Nd:YVO
4
crystal, its application in high-power laser systems is
much limited. By using diffusion bonding of a doped laser crystal
Nd:YVO
4
with a non-doped crystal YVO
4
, known as the composite
crystal, it had been shown that the temperature gradient in the
YVO
4
/Nd:YVO
4
composite crystal can be reduced [9]. Although
the measured result shows that the thermal conduction of Nd:
YVO
4
crystal is not high [10], the calculations demonstrate that
the thermal effect of YVO
4
/Nd:YVO
4
crystal at the same pump
power can be evendently reduced in comparison to that of Nd:
YVO
4
crystal [11]. The employment of a composite crystal has been
demonstrated to be a useful method in relieving the thermal lens
effect [12].
In this paper, by using both acousto-optic (AO) modulator and
GaAs saturable absorber, a diode-pumped doubly QML YVO
4
/Nd:
YVO
4
/KTP green laser is presented. The average output power
and the pulse width of the Q-switched envelope have been mea-
sured. Especially, by using double-loss modulations (AO and GaAs),
the doubly Q-switched and mode-locked green laser can generate
more stable pulse train with deeper modulation depth, shorter
pulse width, greater pulse energy and higher peak power. A rate
equation model is used to simulate the performance of this green
laser, and the numerical solutions agree well with the experimen-
tal results.
0925-3467/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.optmat.2010.09.021
⇑
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: Shengzhi_zhao@sdu.edu.cn (S. Zhao).
Optical Materials 33 (2011) 303–307
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Optical Materials
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optmat