Realization of a 101 W single-frequency continuous wave all-solid-state 1064 nm laser by means of mode self-reproduction

We realized a 101 W single-frequency continuous wave (CW) all-solid-state 1064 nm laser by means of mode self-reproduction in this Letter. Two identical laser crystals were placed into a resonator to relax the thermal lens of the laser crystals, and an imaging system was employed to realize cavity mode self-reproduced at the places of the laser crystals. Single-frequency operation of the resonator was realized by employing a new kind of high extinction ratio optical diode based on the terbium scandium aluminum garnet crystal to realize a stable unidirectional operation of the laser, together with introducing a large enough nonlinear loss to the resonator to effectively suppress the multi-mode oscillation and mode hopping of the laser. As a result, a 101 W single-frequency 1064 nm laser in a single-ring resonator was achieved with 42.3% optical efficiency. The measured power stability for 8 h and the beam quality were better than +/- 0.73% and 1.2, respectively. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America