Recent advances in 2-µm GaSb-based semiconductor disk laser - power scaling, narrow-linewidth and short-pulse operation

An overview of the recent progress in 2-µm GaSb-based semiconductor disk laser will be presented in this paper. Significant advances could be recently achieved in scaling the output power as well as in narrow-linewidth and short-pulse operation. Moreover, we will discuss the limiting effect for the output power imposed by laser emission perpendicular to the beam propagation, i.e. lateral lasing, and show means to suppress this phenomenon adversely affecting the laser performance. By using several gain elements in one laser cavity, the demonstration of more than 10 W output power from a GaSb-based SDL will be reported. Furthermore, employing a high-stability setup optimized for single-frequency emission more than 1 W output power at a linewidth below 50 kHz will be shown. Further comprehensive stability analyses were conducted paving the path for future stability improvements. Moreover, electro-optic cavity dumping of disk lasers will be demonstrated to be an effective means for achieving <3 ns pulses at peak powers exceeding 30 W.