High-repetition-rate and short-pulse-width electro-optical cavity-dumped YVO₄/Nd:GdVO₄ laser

In this paper, an electro-optical cavity-dumped 1.06 μm laser using YVO4/Nd:GdVO4 composite crystal under 808 nm diode-laser pumping was reported. Theoretical calculations showed that the temperature distribution in YVO4/Nd:GdVO4 crystal was lower than that in GdVO4/Nd:GdVO4 and Nd:GdVO4 crystals under the same conditions. A constant 3.8±0.3  ns pulse width was obtained and the repetition rate could reach up to 50 kHz with a maximum average output power of 5.6 W and slope efficiency of 40.7%, corresponding to a peak power of 31.1 kW.