Two-piece, piezoelectrically tuned, single-mode Nd:YAG ring laser

A two-piece, single-mode, piezoelectrically tuned Nd:YAG ring laser has been demonstrated at 1338 nm. The laser was derived from a previously demonstrated monolithic unidirectional ring laser that has been cut in two to allow the cavity to be tuned by varying the gap between the two pieces. More than 1 mW of output power was produced when the laser was pumped by a 30-mW, 809-nm GaAlAs semiconductor laser. Continuous tuning over the 13.5-GHz longitudinal mode spacing with millisecond sweep times was demonstrated.