A Resonantly Pumped Q-Switched Er:Lu₂SiO₅ Laser

We describe the cw and Q-switched actions of a novel erbium-doped crystal Er:Lu₂SiO₅ pumped by a MgO:PPLN-OPO at 1536 nm. An efficient 1580.9 nm cw laser with the output power of 608 mW is obtained when the incident power is 4.5 W, corresponding to a slope efficiency of 11.1%. In the Q-switched operation, the pulse energy up to 1.2 mJ is obtained at a repetition rate of 200 Hz.