Diode-pumped Nd:YVO4/BiBO blue laser at 440 nm

Abstract

We report a diode-pumped Nd:YVO4 laser emitting at 880 nm based on the 4F3/2 – 4I9/2 transition for the first time. A power of 1.13 W at 880 nm has been achieved in continuous-wave operation with a fiber-coupled laser diode emitting 28.6 W at 808 nm. Furthermore, intracavity second-harmonic generation in continuous-wave mode has also been demonstrated with a power of 233 mW at 440 nm by using a BiB3O6 (BiBO) nonlinear crystal. The fluctuation of the blue output power was better than 2.3%. The beam quality M2 value is 1.2.