Stable, 12 W, continuous-wave single-frequency Nd:YVO4 green laser polarized and dual-end pumped at 880 nm

Based on a polarized and dual-end pumping scheme and a ring resonator, a stable, high power and high beam quality continuous-wave single-frequency Nd:YVO4 green laser directly pumped at 880 nm has been fabricated. A measured maximum output power of 12 W at 532 nm was obtained with a conversion efficiency of 23.1%. The stability of the output was better than ±0.5% and no mode hopping was observed over a period of five hours. The output beam was almost diffraction limited with a measured beam quality of M2(x)=1.03 and M2(y)=1.02. The intensity noise reached the shot noise limit (SNL) for analysis frequencies above 3.5 MHz, and the phase noise was 1.3 dB above the SNL in the range of 2 to 20 MHz.