High-power diode-end-pumped laser with multi-segmented Nd-doped yttrium vanadate

A Nd:YVO4 crystal consisting of three segments with different doping concentrations is originally developed for power scaling in diode-end-pumped solid-state laser. We systematically make a comparison of laser characteristics between the multi-segmented and conventional composite crystals to show the feasibility of using gain medium with multiple doping concentrations for power scale-up in end-pumped laser without introducing significant thermally accompanied effects. We further construct a dual-end-pumped actively Q-switched oscillator at 1064 nm to verify the usefulness of our crystal design, where the largest pulse energy of 1.06 mJ and the highest output power of 45 W are efficiently generated.