An efficient and compact laser-diode end-pumped intracavity frequency-tripled Nd: YVO4 355 nm laser

By exploiting the intracavity frequency conversion configuration, a diode end-pumped acousto-optic (AO) Q-switched Nd:YVO4 355 nm laser was demonstrated in this paper. Two LBO crystals were inserted in the cavity to realize the frequency tripling operation, a cascade of the second harmonic generation (SHG) and sum frequency mixing (SFM). Under the absorbed pump power of 13 W, the maximum average output power at 355 nm was obtained to be 1.32 W at the repetition frequency of 17 kHz, with the optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 10.2%. The corresponding pulse width was 10.2 ns, with the energy of a single pulse and corresponding peak power estimated to be 77.6 μJ and 7.61 kW, respectively.