Study of a High-Power Tm:YAP Slab Laser Operated at 1.94 μm

We compare the laser performance of two laser-diode dual-end-pumped 3 at.% b-cut Tm:YAP slab lasers with a concave-plane resonator and a plane–plane resonator. At an incident pump power of 564 W, we achieve the maximum output power equal to 214 W in the Tm:YAP laser with two resonators; the corresponding optical conversion efficiency reaches 37.9% and the slope efficiency is 50.6%. The emission wavelength is 1938.6 nm with an FWHM of about 0.47 nm. At an output power of 200 W, the beam quality factor M2 equal to 142 in the x direction and 5.3 in the y direction. This laser is useful for pumping a Ho:YLF slab laser, which provides the 2.05 μm laser radiation for CO2 differential absorption Lidar measurements.