Efficient, green laser based on a blue-diode pumped rare-earth-doped fluoride crystal in an extremely short resonator

The green cw laser presented in this work is realized by means of a Pr:YLF crystal emitting at 523 nm that is pumped by a blue GaN laser diode in an extremely short resonator. With a 500 mW-diode a laser has been achieved with M2 = 1, a slope of 40 % and an output power of 140mW with an absorbed pump power of 410 mW which results in an electrooptical efficiency of 6.5 %. Despite the reduced overlap with a 1 W-diode the output power rises to 290 mW with an absorbed pump power of 850 mW and the M2 increases only slightly. Based on these results a compact laser package has been accomplished using a monolithic micro optics for the beam shaping of the diode light and joining all components with a low-shrinkage adhesive on a common base plate. In a first test of the alignment strategy a laser with an output power of 92 mW has been achieved by means of the 500 mW pump power.