Intra-cavity harmonic generation in diode-pumped Q-switched Nd:YAG rod lasers is a preferred architecture to generate
high output power at 532nm and 355nm in multimode operation. We have developed a side-pumped, dual rod Nd:YAG
laser with intra-cavity second harmonic generation using Type II LBO in a double-pass configuration. A maximum
532nm output power of 420 W was achieved at 10 kHz with an M^2 of about 24. The pulse duration was 70 ns with a
pulse energy stability of less than 0.7% rms. By incorporating a novel birefringence compensation technique and adding
a Type II LBO sum frequency generator, we attained 160W of 355nm output at a repetition rate of 8 kHz with an M^2 of
18 and a pulse duration of 45 ns.
Since their first commercial introduction in 1997, diode-pumped Q-switched vanadate and YAG lasers with 355nm output have advanced in power level and reliability and are now qualified in many industrial processes, such as via hole drilling, stereo lithography, wafer scribing and dicing. At present, average output power of up to 20W at 355nm are commercially available with pulse energies of several hundred micro-Joules and pulse repetition rates of up to 150 kHz. In this paper, we report high power UV generation with TEM00 mode output powers in excess of 30W in Q-switched, end-pumped Nd:YVO4 and side-pumped Nd:YAG lasers using extra-cavity sum frequency generation in LBO. With a side-pumped dual-rod Nd:YAG rod oscillator and extra-cavity tripling, 32W output power at 355nm have been achieved at a repetition rate of 50 kHz. With an end-pumped vanadate MOPA configuration, UV average power of 36W with TEM00 mode was realized at repetition rates around 100 kHz. Lifetest results are presented and the scaling to higher UV power of more than 60W is discussed.
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