Diode-pumped acousto-optical Q-switched Ho:GdTaO4 laser at 2.07 μm

A diode-pumped acousto-optical Q-switched Ho:GdTaO4 (Ho:GTO) laser has been demonstrated in this paper. At repetition rate of 10 kHz, a maximum average output power of 3.77 W at absorbed LD power of 13.1 W was achieved with a slope efficiency of 45.1% and a pulse width of 47 ns, corresponding to a calculated peak power of 8.02 kW. With repetition rate of 1 kHz, a maximum pulse energy of 3 mJ was achieved with a pulse width of 17 ns, corresponding to a maximum peak power of 176.47 kW. Moreover, the beam quality factors of AO Q-switched Ho:GTO laser at maximum output were estimated to be 1.33 in x-direction and 1.28 in y-direction, respectively.