Femtosecond diode-pumped Nd:glass laser with >1-W average output power

Summary form only given. We report on a significant improvement in average output power of a diode-pumped Nd:glass laser, achieving >1 W mode locked and 2 W continuous wave. We used a 1-cm-wide, 806-nm 20-W diode bar and applied optimized mode matching (OMM) in the gain material in both the fast (i.e., sagittal) axis and the slow (i.e., tangential) axis of the diode laser, following the cavity design first demonstrated by Kopf et al. (1995) for Cr:LiSAF. Applying OMM to both axes results in a highly elliptical laser mode inside the gain medium, because the pump beam can be focused much smaller in the diffraction-limited fast axis compared to the slow axis. The highly elliptical pump mode allows for improved heat removal by using a very thin 0.8-mm-thick Nd:glass material and by actively cooling only the upper and lower side of the glass.