Diode-side-pumped Alexandrite slab lasers

We present the investigation of diode-side-pumping of Alexandrite slab lasers in a range of designs using linear cavity and grazing-incidence bounce cavity configurations. An Alexandrite slab laser cavity with double-pass side pumping produces 23.4 mJ free-running energy at 100 Hz rate with slope efficiency ~40% with respect to absorbed pump energy. In a slab laser with single-bounce geometry output power of 12.2 W is produced, and in a double-bounce configuration 6.5 W multimode and 4.5 W output in TEM₀₀ mode is produced. These first results of slab laser and amplifier designs in this paper highlight some of the potential strategies for power and energy scaling of Alexandrite using diode-side-pumped Alexandrite slab architectures with future availability of higher power red diode pumping.