The performance of a novel Ho:LuAG ceramic laser Q-switched by a polycrystalline Cr2+:ZnS saturable absorber

A novel Ho:LuAG ceramic laser Q-switched by a polycrystalline Cr2+:ZnS saturable absorber was reported for the first time in this paper. We took a diode-pumped Tm:YLF laser emitting at 1.9075 μm as the pump source. The laser operated in both continuous wave mode and passively Q-switching (PQS) mode. The maximum PQS output power of 2.67 W was obtained with a slope efficiency of 26.4%. When the absorbed pump power increased from 4.78 to 10.8 W, with three output couplers of T = 2%, T = 10% and T = 25%, the pulse widths decreased as the pump power increased, from 102.9 to 89.2 ns, from 147.1 to 127.6 ns, and from 173 to 150 ns, respectively, and the repetition frequency varied from 10.2 to 20.1 kHz, from 9.3 to 18.3 kHz, and from 8.45 to 16.66 kHz as well. The central wavelength remained constant 2100.64 nm with the change of output couplers and operation modes. Furthermore, the output laser had a beam quality factor M2 of 1.1.