Abstract

Quasi-cw pumping is used to investigate the high-power characteristics of cw beam conversion in diamond Raman lasers (DRLs). We show that thermal gradients establish in DRLs at approximately 50 μs for a 100 μm pump beam diameter, and thus that the steady state for cw operation can be reached within the 100–300 μs pulse duration of conventional quasi-cw pump laser technology. Using this approach, a steady-state on-time output power of 108 W was obtained from an external-cavity DRL during 250 μs pulses with 34% conversion efficiency. No thermal lens in the diamond was evident, showing excellent prospects for further power scaling.

© 2014 Optical Society of America

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