Jun DONG^*, Akira SHIRAKAWA and Ken-ichi UEDA

Institute for Laser Science, University of Electro-Communications, 1-5-1 Chofugaoka, Chofu, Tokyo 182-8585, Japan

(Received October 12, 2004; Accepted March 10, 2005)

The dynamic and laser characteristics of the self-Q-switched Cr,Yb:YAG laser were studied by solving the coupled rate equations; the effects of the pump rate, reflectivity of the output couplers and the concentrations of the saturable absorbers on the laser performance were investigated in detail and the numerical simulation of the Cr,Yb:YAG lasers was in good agreement with the experimental data. Better laser performance of the Cr,Yb:YAG self-Q-switched laser can be obtained by using high pump rate, higher concentration of the saturable absorber and suitable reflectivity of the output coupler according to our numerical calculations. A typical self-Q-switched laser pulse of 269.5 μJ pulse energy with 319 ps pulse width (FWHM) at a repetition rate of 3.1 kHz can be obtained with a monolithic laser cavity, which results in 843.5 kW peak power.

Key words: Cr,Yb:YAG crystal, self-Q-switched, numerical simulation

^*Corresponding author. E-mail: dong@ils.uec.ac.jp