Up to 30Â mW of broadly tunable CW green-to-orange light, based on sum-frequency mixing of Cr4+:forsterite and Nd:YVO4 lasers

Efficient generation of continuous-wave (CW) tunable light in the yellow region is reported. The method is based on sum-frequency mixing of a tunable Cr4+:forsterite laser with a Nd:YVO4 laser. A periodically poled lithium niobate crystal was placed intra-cavity in a Nd:YVO4 laser, and the Cr4+:forsterite laser was single-passed through the non-linear media. With this setup, it was possible to generate up to 3 mW of yellow light smoothly tunable from 573 to 587 nm. This is the highest output demonstrated to date for a tunable diode pumped solid-state CW laser in this wavelength region. The ways to improve the efficiency further are discussed.