Performance improvement of Nd:GdVO₄ laser under 879 nm direct pumping

Thermal effect in the laser diode (LD) high-power pumped solid-state lasers will reduce the efficiency of output power, decrease the output beam quality, deteriorate the resonator stability and so on. The novel 879 nm LD instead of 808 nm LD was used to pump Nd:GdVO₄ crystal rod directly, driving Nd³⁺ ions into the laser emitting level avoiding useless heat generation during no-radiation transition and reducing the thermal effects efficiently. In the same experimental conditions, the comparison on performances of Nd:GdVO₄ laser between under 808 nm LD pumping and under 879 nm LD pumping was demonstrated, and showed that the performances of the former were superior to that of the latter. In the 879 nm LD pumped Nd:GdVO₄ plane-plane cavity laser, the maximum TEM₀₀ 1063 nm output power of 9.8 W is obtained at an absorbed pump power of 16.3 W, an optical-optical efficiency of 60.1% and a slope efficiency of 68.4% are achieved.