It is well known that intra-cavity second-harmonic generation (SHG) suppresses mode hopping in solid-state resonators
producing single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) output at the second-harmonic frequency (SHF). A simple extension of this
concept is to suppress mode hopping in a resonator producing SLM output at the fundamental frequency (through an
output-coupling mirror) by inserting an intra-cavity SHG crystal that converts a fraction of the intra-cavity power to the
SHF. The beam at the SHF can either be dumped or is available as a second output beam. When combined with a PZT-actuated
mirror, it is possible to continuously tune the frequency of the fundamental beam through a significant fraction
of the gain bandwidth without mode hopping. SHG also suppresses mode hopping during warm up and during pumppower
changes. These features were demonstrated in a unidirectional Nd:YVO4 ring resonator producing an output
beam greater than 25W at 1064nm while generating a few Watts at the SHF of 532nm. Mode hopping is substantially
reduced during warm up and mode-hop-free operation can be sustained over many hours. Frequency tuning over several
GHz was demonstrated and larger tuning ranges are possible. The PZT-actuated mirror can be used to eliminate
frequency drift, to stabilize the output to a frequency standard (such as an atomic-absorption line), or to mitigate cavitylength
changes due to acoustic noise.
We report on the development of a Nd:YVO4 based regenerative amplifier, producing more than 25W of average power
at 200kHz, with a pulse length of 10ps at 1064nm. The amplifier is seeded by a low power, mode-locked fiber laser. The
amplifier output has been used for the generation of high energy second and third harmonics with up to 80% conversion
to 532nm and 40% to 355nm. The average power of the amplifier has been increased further using a single pass linear
amplifier to produce 54W at 200kHz.
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