Performance of a dual-end-pumped Er:YAG ring laser at room temperature

We demonstrated continuous-wave (CW) and Q-switched operation of a room-temperature Er:YAG ring laser that is dual-end-pumped by a laser diode at 1532 nm. For the continuous-wave regime, a maximum output power of 4.6 W at 1645.1 nm was obtained under the pump power of 27 W and threshold of about 19 W, corresponding to the slope efficiency of 54.3% with respect to the pump power and optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 17%. For the Q-switched regime, the maximum pulse energy of 3.91 mJ and the minimum pulse width of 106 ns at the repetition rate of 100 Hz was achieved. (paper)