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Solid state laser; thermal lens; diode pumping; plane-plane cavity; product

In this paper an alternative approach for measurement of στ product for ⁴F_3/2→⁴I_11/2 transition of Nd³⁺ doped YVO₄ crystal is reported. In this method a microchip laser is formed by keeping a small piece of the sample in plane-plane resonator and a diode laser (808 nm) is used for pumping. The pump power induced thermal lensing effect is used to make the cavity stable. The cavity mode area is estimated by measuring the thermal lens focal length at the threshold and the average pump area is measured by Gaussian fit to the intensity profiles of the pump beam. The value of στ product of Nd:YVO₄ crystal obtained by this method is within 10% of the reported values. The advantage of this method is that it is a simple method for direct measurement of στ product of laser crystals.

PK Mukhopadhyay¹ Jogy George¹ SK Sharma¹ Rakesh Kapoor¹ TPS Nathan¹

1. Solid State Laser Laboratory, MPS-3, Center for Advanced Technology, Indore - 452 013, India

Manuscript received

26 June 2000

Manuscript revised

11 September 2000