Investigation of the antiphase dynamics of the orthogonally polarized passively Q-switched Nd:YLF laser

The antiphase dynamics of Q-switched orthogonally polarized emissions have been thoroughly investigated. A Nd:YLF crystal with the anisotropic thermal lensing effect is used as the gain medium for achieving dual polarized laser. By using the Cr4+:YAG saturable absorber, the passively Q-switched output shows intriguing switching dynamics, where the number of pulses for both polarized components within one switching period is directly determined by the power ratio between the orthogonally polarized emissions. Experimental results reveal that the pulse energies of every single pulse for both orthogonally polarized states are equal with the maximum value of 223 mu J. The pulse durations for pi- and sigma-polarization are measured to be 15 ns and 11 ns and the corresponding peak power levels are up to 15.0 kW and 20.3 kW, respectively. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement