Q-Switched Anti-Misalignment Ho: YLF Ring Cavity Laser with Single Corner Cube Prism.

We demonstrate anti-misalignment acousto-optically (AO) Q-switched Ho: YLF ring cavity laser with a single corner cube prism (CCP) as the cavity mirror and a diode-pumped 1940 nm solid state laser as the pump source. We study the polarization state of oscillating light of ring cavity with the CCP by simulation calculations, which matched with the experimental results. In the continuous wave (CW) operation, the Ho: YLF laser achieves a total bidirectional output power of 3.8 W at the wavelength of 2063.5 nm, corresponding to an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 15% and a slope efficiency of 50.7%. The maximum allowable deviations of the CCP are 0.57° (pitch angle) and 1.65° (horizontal angle), respectively. We obtain a single pulse energy of 17 mJ and a pulse width of 113 ns at a pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of 100 Hz. The beam quality factors in the horizontal and vertical directions are M x 2 = 1.01 and M y 2 = 1.06, respectively, which are approached to the diffraction limit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]