The 2.1-/im 5I7-518 laser transition in Ho3+ is attractive because of its long upper laser level lifetime, of the order of 5 msec, and its eye-safe wavelength. However, this laser typically is cooled to liquid-N2 temperatures to achieve continuous-wave (cw) or high-repetition-rate operation because its lower laser level is in the ground-state manifold, a few hundred inverse centimeters above th...

We present modeling studies of quasi-three-level laser oscillators, the validity of which was revealed by Ti:Al(2)O(3)-pumped Yb:YAG laser experiments, and these results are shown to be in excellent agreement with the theory. As much as 75% slope efficiency was obtained with a hemispherical laser cavity. Previous modeling calculations of laser performance have been valid only for certain specia...

We describe erbium-ytterbium co-doped fiber lasers in different free-running and tunable configurations. The lasers were cladding-pumped by high-power multimode diode sources. We compare pumping at 915 and 980 nm. With a free-running laser, we obtained slope efficiencies of up to 50% with 915-nm pumping and 38% with 980-nm pumping, with respect to absorbed pump power. We reached a double-ended ...

We describe a simple experiment that demonstrates one-dimensional laser cooling in a sealed vapor cell. A velocity selective optical pumping scheme was first used to define a collimated beam of atoms within the cell. A particular velocity group of atoms was labeled by optical pumping with one laser and detected by absorption with a second laser. Transverse cooling of this velocity group, which ...

A powerful photoand thermostable, LiF:Fj** color center laser pumped by radiation at 740 nm (alexandrite laser) or at 683 nm (Raman shifted (H2) second harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser) is described. This is the first time an average power as high as —1.4 W and an energy per pulse as high as 1OOmJ, with record real efficiency of 53% (683 nm pumping) and 28% (740 nm pumping) were achieved for a room t...

We report the operation of a photopumped blue Znx8Cdy8Mg12x82y8Se/ZnxCdyMg12x2ySe separate confinement heterostructure single quantum well laser grown lattice matched to InP with a relatively thick quaternary quantum well ~;50 Å!. Laser emission at 492 nm in the blue was observed. The lasing linewidth is about 5 nm. Based on the temperature dependency of the threshold pumping intensity, the cha...

We make systematic measurements of Raman anti-Stokes/Stokes (aS/S) ratios using two different laser excitations (514 and 633 nm) of rhodamine 6G (RH6G) on dried Ag colloids over a wide range of temperatures (100 to 350 K). We show that a temperature scan allows the separation of the contributions to the aS/S ratios from resonance effects and heating/pumping, thus decoupling the two main aspects...

ontinuous-wave laser operation of bulk Er:Yb:phosphate glass pumped at 980 nm by an InGaAs index-guided diode laser has been achieved for the first time to our knowledge, with 2 mW of output power obtained at 1.54 microm. To optimize pumping conditions and to investigate the effects of pump wavelength, the Er(3+):Yb(3+) glass disk has also been pumped by a Ti:Al(2)O(3) laser at 960 and 980 nm, ...

We report a highly efficient cryo-cooled eye-safe laser operation of a resonantly-pumped (in-band) Er³⁺:GdVO₄ single crystal. The maximum continuous wave (CW) power of 10.3 W with 84% slope efficiency was achieved at 1598.7 with pumping at 1538.6 nm by a spectrally-narrowed Er-fiber laser. Under the 1529 nm resonant pumping by a commercially available diode bar stack operating in a quasi-CW (QC...