Comparative study of eye-safe Nd:LuAG crystal and ceramic lasers at 1.83 μm operating on 4F3/2 → 4I15/2 transition

We report on diode-pumped Nd:LuAG crystal and ceramic lasers operating at about 1.83 μm, using a simple and compact plane-concave cavity configuration. For Nd:LuAG crystal laser oscillating at 1828.43 nm, the maximum output power reaches 0.36 W with slope efficiency of about 5.0%. For Nd:LuAG ceramic laser, a maximum output power of 0.145 W is achieved with slope efficiency of about 2.2%, and the lasing wavelength peaks at 1828.76 nm. The 1.83-μm Nd laser sources could be very promising for eye-safe applications because they have stronger water absorption than another kind of eye-safe Nd lasers operating at 1.4 μm.