High-average-power BaWO/sub 4/ Raman laser pumped by a self-phase-conjugated Nd-laser

We present a new scheme of a high-power Raman laser based on the most promising Raman crystals BaWO/sub 4/ and Ba(NO/sub 3/)/sub 2/ pumped by an originally designed high-power phase-conjugated Nd:YAG laser. The recently developed BaWO/sub 4/ crystal has extremely high Raman peak cross section, close to that of Ba(NO/sub 3/)/sub 2/ crystal, and demonstrates much higher hardness, thermal conductivity, and moisture resistance. We obtained the output Raman laser radiation with an average power of up to 5 W for the Ba(NO/sub 3/)/sub 2/ and 6 W for the BaWO/sub 4/ crystal.