Actively Q-switched radially polarized Ho:YAG laser with an intra-cavity laser-written S-waveplate

Barber, Matthew James, Shardlow, Peter, Lei, Yuhao, Kazansky, Peter G. and Clarkson, W.A. (2022) Actively Q-switched radially polarized Ho:YAG laser with an intra-cavity laser-written S-waveplate. Optics Letters, 47 (17), 4508-4511. (doi:10.1364/OL.467960).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Nanosecond Q-switched pulses and radial polarization are established standalone techniques for enhanced laser materials processing applications, but are generally challenging to achieve simultaneously at high average power levels. Here, we demonstrate a 20.6 W radially polarized Ho:YAG rod laser which has been actively Q-switched in order to generate 515 μJ , 210 ns pulses at 2097 nm. By utilizing an ultra-low-loss spatially-variant birefringent waveplate (S-waveplate) inside the laser cavity, the linearly polarized fundamental mode has been converted to a radially polarized donut-shaped beam with very high conversion efficiency.

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Published date: 1 September 2022

Additional Information: Funding Information: Acknowledgments. M.J.B. acknowledges financial support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Leonardo UK. Funding Information: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (2115206); European Research Council (789116). M.J.B. acknowledges financial support from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Leonardo UK. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Optica Publishing Group.

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