A diode-pumped, actively mode-locked hybrid Nd:phosphate glass and Nd:YVO4 laser

Hybrid lasers provide a new way to utilize the useful properties of different laser media to control and to improve laser performance. Nd:glass has broad linewidth and can produce less than 100 fs pulses. Due to its partially inhomogeneous broadening, its lasing spectrum is often not well shaped and stable. It was demonstrated that in a hybrid Nd:phosphate glass and Nd:YLF laser, a small gain from Nd:YLF can stabilize the lasing spectrum of Nd:phosphate glass in both the cw and active mode locking operations, producing coherent and short laser pulses. We have demonstrated that a gain from Nd:YVO₄ can also exert effective control of Nd:phosphate glass lasing spectrum in a diode-pumped cw hybrid Nd:phosphate glass and Nd:YVO₄ laser, even when the line centers of the two laser media separate by as far apart as 10 nm. In this paper we report the first operation of a diode-pumped, actively mode-locked hybrid Nd:phosphate glass and Nd:YVO ₄ laser