The quasi-three-level 912 nm continuous-wave laser emission under direct diode laser pumping at 880 nm into emitting level 4 F 3/2 of Nd:GdVO 4 have been demonstrated. An endpumped Nd:GdVO 4 crystal yielded 8.1 W of output power for 13.9 W of absorbed pump power. The slope efficiency with respect to the absorbed pump power was 0.679. To the best of our knowledge this is the first demonstration of such a laser system. Comparative results obtained for the pump with diode laser at 808 nm, into the highly-absorbing 4 F 5/2 level, are given in order to prove the advantages of the 880 nm wavelength pumping.

We present for the first time a Nd:YAG laser emitting at 1064 nm intracavity pumped by a 946 nm diode-pumped Nd:YAG laser. A 809 nm laser diode is used to pump the first Nd:YAG crystal emitting at 946 nm, and the second Nd:YAG laser emitting at 1064 nm intracavity pumped at 946 nm. Intracavity sum-frequency mixing at 946 and 1064 nm was then realized in a LBO crystal to reach the cyan range. We obtained a continuous-wave output power of 485 mW at 501 nm with a pump laser diode emitting 25.4 W at 809 nm.

We describe the output performances of the 916 nm 4F3/2 → 4I9/2 transition in Nd:LuVO4 under in‐band pumping with diode laser at the 880 nm wavelength, directly into the 4F3/2 emitting level. An end‐pumped Nd:LuVO4 crystal yielded 11.7 W of continuous‐wave output power for 23.5 W of absorbed pump power. The slope efficiency with respect to the absorbed pump power was 66.6%. Furthermore, 5.9 W 458 nm deep‐blue light was acquired by frequency doubling, resulting in an opticalto‐optical efficiency with respect to the absorbed pump power of 25.1%. Comparative results obtained for the pump with diode laser at 809 nm, into the highly‐absorbing 4F5/2 level, are given in order to prove the advantages of the in‐band pumping. (© 2010 by Astro Ltd., Published exclusively by WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA)

We report a diode-pumped Nd:YAG laser emitting at 899 nm based on the 4 F 3/2 -4 I 9/2 transition. A power of 1.04 W at 899 nm has been achieved in continuous-wave operation with a fiber-coupled laser diode emitting 19.2 W at 809 nm. Furthermore, intracavity second-harmonic generation in continuouswave mode has also been demonstrated with a power of 284 mW at 449.5 nm by using a BiB 3 O 6 (BiBO) nonlinear crystal. The fluctuation of the blue output power was better than 2.8%. The beam quality M 2 value is 1.3.

The continuous-wave (CW) laser properties of an efficient diode-pumped Nd:YAP crystal operating at 1.43 μm formed with a simple plane-concave cavity have been studied. With the incident pump power of 17.8 W, an output power of 2.2 W was obtained, giving an optical conversion efficiency of 12.4% and a slope efficiency of 14.7%. The beam quality factor M 2 was less than 1.2. The power stability was less 2.4% in 60 minutes. Output power at 1.43 μm laser versus the incident pump power