Study on properties of Nd:YAG ceramic microchips with different concentration

Abstract Polycrystalline Nd-doped Y3Al5O12 ceramic is a competitive candidate for solid-state laser material. Here, attenuation loss, optical absorption, fluorescence lifetime and laser oscillation have been investigated for different concentration ceramic microchips. A 1064 nm laser is generated for 0.1 at.%, 0.5 at.%, 0.8 at.%, 1 at.% and 2 at.% Nd:YAG samples. The maximal output power of 17.4 W is achieved on a 4-mm thick 0.8% Nd-doped ceramic. The measured conversion efficiency is as high as 55%, which represents, to our knowledge, the highest result demonstrated to date for Nd:YAG microchip lasers. Based on a theoretical model of continuous-wave end-pumped four-level system, the effects of optical properties for different concentration ceramics on the laser output performance are also analytical and numerical solutions, where the simulated results agree well with the experimental data.