Room-temperature diode-bar-pumped Nd:YAG laser at 946 nm

Efficient, high-power operation of a diode-bar-pumped Nd:YAG laser on the quasi-three-level transition at 946 nm is reported. Longitudinal pumping of a simple folded cavity by a 20-W diode bar, with a two-mirror beam shaper used to reformat the bar's output, yields a continuous-wave output power at room temperature of ~3 W in a 1.5-times diffraction-limited beam for 13.6 W of incident pump power. The corresponding optical slope efficiency was approximately 33%.