Abstract

The purpose of the present work has been to study concepts for compact low threshold side-pumped Tm and Tm:Ho lasers with a few mJ output energy. Due to the three- level nature of these materials, high pump intensities are required for efficient laser operation, and this is more difficult to achieve in side-pumped than in end-pumped geometries. There are to our knowledge only a few reports of diode side- pumped Tm:Ho lasers in the literature, and in these cases a large number of diode bars have been used to obtain efficient operation. h2 In the present work we demonstrate that efficient side-pumped operation can be obtained with as little as two diode-bars.

© 1994 Optical Society of America