An efficient 1103 nm Nd:YAG/BaWO4 Raman laser

A compact efficient Raman laser at 1103.2 nm is realized within a diode-end-pumped acousto-optically Q-switched 1064.2 nm Nd:YAG laser. A 46-mm-long BaWO4 crystal is used as the active medium and its 332 cm-1 Raman mode is employed to finish the conversion from 1064.2 nm fundamental laser to 1103.2 nm Raman laser. At an incident pump power of 7.55 W, the first-Stokes power of 1.23 W at 1103.2 nm is obtained at a repetition rate of 17 kHz, corresponding to a diode-to-Stokes conversion efficiency of 16.3%. Pulse width is measured to be 27 ns and the peak power is 2.6 kW. The beam quality factors (M2) in the two orthogonal directions are 2.0±0.2 and 1.8±0.2, respectively