Continuous wave and passively Q-switched Nd:Lu _xY_1-x VO_4 laser at 134 μm with V^3+:YAG as the saturable absorber

We demonstrated a diode-pumped continuous wave and passively Q-switched Nd:Lu(x)Y(1-x)VO4 laser at 1.34 μm with V3+:YAG as the saturable absorber. The crystal Nd:Lu(x)Y(1-x)VO4 with equal ionic ratio (x = 0.5) shows better laser performance. The maximum continuous wave output power of 1.45 W was obtained with the optical efficiency of 20.1% and the slope efficiency of 24.5%. For the pulsed operation, the minimum pulse width achieved was 42 ns with the pulse repetition frequency of 142 kHz, and the single pulse energy and the peak power were estimated to be 6.62 μJ and 157.6 W, respectively.