Power and Radiance Scaling of a 946 nm Nd:YAG Planar
Waveguide Laser¹

S. P. Ng and J. I. Mackenzie*

Optoelectronics Research Centre, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK

*e-mail: jim@orc.soton.ac.uk

Received August 18, 2011; in final form, September 30, 2011; published online February 6, 2012

Abstract—We present a diode-end-pumped Nd:YAG planar waveguide laser operating on neodymium’s
quasi-four-level transition at a wavelength of 946 nm. Two modes of operation are described: a high-power
multi-mode monolithic cavity generating 105 for 210 W of incident pump power with a slope efficiency of
~54%, and secondly, a high-radiance configuration employing an external stable resonator producing a max-
imum output power of 29.2 for 86.5 W of incident pump-power, with a slope efficiency of 33%. The output
beam quality values of the external cavity were M² of 3.2 by 2.4, leading to a maximum radiance of 0.43GW
cm^–2 sr^–1.

DOI: 10.1134/S1054660X12030140

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