Tm:YAG Disk Laser Intra-Cavity Pumped by QCW $1 ~\mu$ m Yb:YAG Thin Disk Laser

We report a 2 μm Tm:YAG disk-laser intra-cavity pumped by a Yb:YAG thin-disk laser at 1030 nm. The result demonstrates that a thin-disk-shape Tm:YAG crystal can operate with 1 μm pumping sources having an extremely low absorption (<; 1.37 × 10
^-3
/mm). The slope efficiency of the 2 μm laser with respect to the 940 nm laser diode (pump source of the 1 μm laser) was ~1.05%. We obtained a maximum average power of 760 mW, and a maximum peak power of 2.5 W. As far as we know, this is the first report of a 1 μm-laser-pumped disk-shape Tm
³⁺
laser. Our work implied that a low-cost, high-power Tm:YAG thin-disk laser can be implemented by power-scaling through this intra-cavity pumping scheme.