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Fiber laser pumped Er:YAG laser action at 1617 nm was achieved at room temperature. An etalon was utilized for tuning the laser to the 1617 nm line. Room temperature operation was characterized and compared with 1645 nm operation. Output power close to 3 Watts CW was demonstrated at the 1617 nm laser line. IntroductionErbium lasers have long since been recognized as the choice for direct laser generation within the "eye-safe" wavelength window (1400 -1700nm). Pulsed (Q-switched) operation at an eye-safe wavelength is critical for the range finder function utilized for fire control. Traditional laser rangefinders were based on flash-lamp pumped Nd:YAG lasers with a non-linear wavelength conversion (such as a Raman cell) to generate pulsed emission near 1500nm [1,2] .Flash-lamp pumped Er:glass lasers were perfected via optimized glass host mixtures (phosphate glasses), and co-dopants (Cr, Nd, Yb) for efficient flash lamp absorption and excitation of the Er upper laser level [3,4] . The advent of saturable absorber (SA) Qswitches and high power 940 nm laser diodes, resulted in the implementation of all-solidstate direct diode pumped Er:glass lasers [5,7,8,9] .Resonantly pumped Er:YAG lasers were shown to operate with high efficiency at room temperature using 1535 nm excitation [10,11,12] . This demonstration utilized an Er:glass laser as the pump source. More recently, the advent of high power Er:glass fiber lasers resulted in the demonstration of efficient high average power (multi-Watt) Er:YAG laser operation at 1645 nm [13,14] .The advantage of Er:YAG lasers is that they can operate at much higher average power than is possible in Er:glass because of the superior thermal and mechanical properties of YAG. Therefore, numerous active sensor transmitters application can find uses of the Er:YAG laser.The telecom industry explosion has seen the development of mature passive and active component technology (modulators, EDFAs, etc.), however, the common 1645 nm Er:YAG laser wavelength falls outside of the telecom wavelength bands (L-band only goes out as far 1620 nm). Er:YAG does have an emission band near 1617 nm -so the purpose of this work was to evaluate the feasibility of operation of the resonantly pumped Er:YAG laser at this 1617 nm wavelength.All solid-state room temperature Er:YAG Laser Operating at 1617 nm

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