Q-switching and scaling of a diode-pumped Er: YLF laser at 2.8 µm

Abstract

Micro-surgical applications using 3 µm Erbium lasers demand a pulsed output of more than 1 Watt, with pulse duration between 0.1 µs and 1 µs. In our paper we demonstrate pulses with the favorable duration for the first time in a 3 µm crystal laser. Scaling of the output power is performed using a new diode-laser pump source. The M4-factor of our diode laser module is an improvement of more than a factor of two compared to the best commercially available system.