Compact Diode-Pumped 946 nm Nd:YAG Laser with Good Beam Quality

A continuous-wave (CW), high-power, quasi-three-level Nd:YAG laser operating at 946 nm is reported. The beam quality of the laser is greatly improved. The laser consists of a composite Nd:YAG rod end pumped by a fiber-coupled diode laser inside a simple concave-plane cavity. At an incident pump power of 31 W, a maximum CW output of 9.98 W was obtained at 946 nm, with a beam quality factor of M-2 similar to 5. The corresponding optical-to-optical efficiency was 32.2% with respect to the incident pump power. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest output power at 946 nm with such a beam quality ever generated by diode-pumped Nd:YAG laser with bulk crystals.