Passively Q-switched Nd:YAG ceramic laser towards large pulse energy and short pulse width

A large pulse energy and high peak power passively Q-switched ceramic neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) laser has been demonstrated with Cr 4+ :YAG crystals as the saturable absorbers. By employing a continuous wave (CW) laser-diode (LD) as the pump source, as high as 11.3 W CW output power of 1064 nm was obtained under the pump power of 21.6 W, with an optical conversion efficiency of 52.3%. Inserting different initial transmissions Cr 4+ :YAG as saturable absorbers, under the incident pump power of 15.6 W, the largest pulse energy, shortest pulse width, and highest peak power are measured to be 188 µJ, 3.16 ns, and 59.5 kW, respectively. As we has known, this is the best passively Q-switched results ever reported by Nd:YAG ceramic material.