Compact High-Power Blue Light from a Diode-Pumped Intracavity-Doubled Nd:YAG Laser

We report an efficient continuous wave (cw) operation of 946 nm and 473 nm laser beams generated from a diode-pumped composite Nd:YAG rod. A very simple compact linear cavity was employed with cavity length of 35 mm. A composite Nd:YAG laser rod was used to release thermal effects. The maximum cw output of 3.3 W at 946 nm was obtained with slope efficiency of 22% at incident pump power of 17.5 W. By intracavity doubling with an LBO crystal, as much as 590 mW of single-ended blue output at 473 nm was achieved with an optical-optical conversion efficiency of 3.4%. The total blue output would be 1.06 W with overall conversion efficiency of 6.1% if the lasers emitted in both the directions were taken into account.