Abstract

Room temperature operation of diode laser pumped Tm,Ho:YAG lasers has previously been reported with slope efficiencies of 17-19% for 0.5% output coupling.^1,2 More recently, the temperature dependence of the output power was studied to determine if sufficient gain could be produced in a diode laser pumped Tm,Ho:YAG laser to support efficient Q-switched.³ We report the results of the operation of a Q-switched Tm,Ho:YAG laser at room temperature pumped by a cw dye laser. Threshold and average power data were obtained for three different values of output coupling at repetition rates of up to 470 Hz. Pulse width and energy were found to be constant up to 480 Hz.

© 1989 Optical Society of America