Abstract

Laser output in the mid-infrared can be generated by starting from a diode-pumped Tm-doped solid-state laser or fibre laser at 1.9 µm, pumping a Ho-doped system at 2 µm to subsequently pump a non-linear device such as an optical parametric oscillator. For high-energy operation, optically pumped molecular lasers are attractive alternatives due to the potential to scale to very high pump energies without optical damage to the medium. One such example is an HBr laser for which the highest reported output energy was 2.5 mJ in a 132 ns pulse at 50 Hz repetition rate when pumped with a narrow-band Ho:YLF laser [1].

© 2011 Optical Society of America