Since their first commercial introduction in 1997, diode-pumped Q-switched vanadate and YAG lasers with 355nm output have advanced in power level and reliability and are now qualified in many industrial processes, such as via hole drilling, stereo lithography, wafer scribing and dicing. At present, average output power of up to 20W at 355nm are commercially available with pulse energies of several hundred micro-Joules and pulse repetition rates of up to 150 kHz. In this paper, we report high power UV generation with TEM00 mode output powers in excess of 30W in Q-switched, end-pumped Nd:YVO4 and side-pumped Nd:YAG lasers using extra-cavity sum frequency generation in LBO. With a side-pumped dual-rod Nd:YAG rod oscillator and extra-cavity tripling, 32W output power at 355nm have been achieved at a repetition rate of 50 kHz. With an end-pumped vanadate MOPA configuration, UV average power of 36W with TEM00 mode was realized at repetition rates around 100 kHz. Lifetest results are presented and the scaling to higher UV power of more than 60W is discussed.
In the past five years diode-pumped Q-switched vanadate and YAG lasers with 355 nm and 266 nm output have advanced in power level and reliability and are now qualified in many industrial processes. In this paper we will discuss the design and performance of these lasers with consideration of available power and wavelength of laser diodes, selection of materials for the non-linear crystals, trades offs for end-pumped and side-pumped designs, and scaling of such lasers to higher power levels. Performance characteristics to be discussed include power and efficiency, ramping behavior, beam quality, and pulse-to-pulse stability.
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