Laser material properties of Dy:YAG

First operation of the 4 F 9 / 2 → 6 H 13 / 2 laser transition in dysprosium doped yttrium aluminum garnet is reported. Room temperature operation at 582.7nm was obtained using 447nm GaN diode lasers pumps. Gaussian single-mode operation was demonstrated with a non-optimized slope efficiency of 12%. Millisecond pulsed operation generated 150mW with power limited by the pump diodes brightness. An emission cross section of 4.1E-21cm 2 at 582.7nm was determined by laser threshold analysis.