High-efficiency Nd:YVO4 laser emission under direct pumping at 880 nm

We report a high-efficiency Nd:YVO4 laser pumped by an all-solid-state Q-switched Ti:Sapphire laser at 880 nm in this paper. Output power at 1064 nm with different-doped Nd:YVO4 crystals of 0.4-, 1.0- and 3.0-at.% under the 880 nm pumping was measured, respectively. Comparative results obtained by the traditional pumping at 808 nm into the highly absorbing 4F5/2 level were presented, showing that the slope efficiency and the threshold with respect to the absorbed pump power of the 1.0-at.% Nd:YVO4 laser under the 880 nm pumping was 17.5% higher and 11.5% lower than those of 808 nm pumping. In a 4-mm-thick, 1.0-at.% Nd:YVO4 crystal, a high slope efficiency of 75% was achieved under the 880 nm pumping, with an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 52.4%.