High average power (105 W) Fe:ZnSe laser pumped by radiation of laser diode side-pumped Er:YAG lasers

A high average power re-frequency operation Fe:ZnSe laser using laser diode side-pumped free-running Er:YAG lasers as activating sources is presented. Two pieces of subsurface layer doped Fe:ZnSe polycrystal are adoptive in a reflective resonator configuration and face-cooled by liquid nitrogen. A maximal Fe:ZnSe laser power of 105 W at a wavelength of 4.1 μm is achieved upon pumping by ten home-made Er:YAG lasers with fiber coupled output working at a frequency of 250 Hz and a pulse duration of ∼420 μs. Corresponding to the maximum Fe:ZnSe laser power, the optical-optical efficiency and slope efficiency with respect to the absorbed pump power are 43% and 44% respectively. The beam quality factor M² is measured to be 3.4. To the best of our knowledge, it is the highest output average power of an Fe:ZnSe laser reported.