Quasi-Three-Level Neodymium Vanadate Laser Operation
under Polarized Diode Pumping: Theoretical
and Experimental Investigation¹

J. Gao^a, *, R. P. Yan^b, X. J. Dai^a, X. Yu^b, L. Zhang^a, and X. D. Wu^a

^a Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Suzhou 215163, Jiangsu, China
^b National Key Laboratory of Tunable Laser Technology,
Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150080, China

*e-mail: owengaojing@126.com

Received January 24, 2012; in final form, March 19, 2012; published online July 9, 2012

Abstract—We propose a novel technique for pumping neodymium vanadate crystal in ⁴F_3/2 ⁴I_9/2 transition
with polarized diode light. With a theoretical model on quasi-three-level neodymium vanadate lasers including
excited state absorption and energy transfer upconversion effects, the improvement on the laser performance of
polarized pumping is evaluated. A maximum output power of 4.8 W in Nd:GdVO₄ 912 nm laser is achieved
with the incident pump power of 21.8 W, the maximum output power increases about 85% and the slope effi-
ciency is enhanced to 1.5 times towards the unpolarized pumping under the same condition. This technique is
especially suitable for quasi-three-level systems end pumped by high-brightness fiber coupled diode sources
associated with short neodymium vanadate crystals.

DOI: 10.1134/S1054660X12080105

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