450 nm blue laser emission of an intracavity-doubled Nd:ASL crystal pumped by an extended-cavity tapered laser diode

For the pumping of one Nd:ASL crystal, we have developed a high-brightness external-cavity tapered laser diode stabilized at 798 nm, by use of a volume Bragg grating (VBG) in a simple and compact set-up. Intracavity frequency doubling was performed with a 10-mm-long AR-coated LBO crystal close to the Nd:ASL crystal in a simple plane-concave cavity.