A Near 60% Efficiency Single-Slab Nd:YAG High-Power Laser With Adjustable Pulse Duration

We report a new approach to effectively improve the optical-to-optical efficiency for quasi-continuous-wave (QCW) lasers by adjusting the pump pulse duration. During our single-slab laser test, an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 57% and a slope conversion of 67.8% are obtained with a maximum average output power of 7.3 kW, operating at a pulse repetition rate of 160 Hz with 470μs pulse duration. To the best of our knowledge, this represents the highest optical-to-optical efficiency for a QCW face-pumped Nd:YAG slab laser with such high power output ever reported.