World’s First Diode pumped Yb:Y2O3 Ceramic Lasers

Development of ceramic lasers is a new trend of laser research worldwide.

In 2003, in collaboration with Japanese scientists, a research team at the School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering led by Professor Tang Dingyuan demonstrated the world-first diode-pumped Yb:Y2O3 ceramic laser. The first emission of the laser had an output power of 750 mW at 1078nm and a slope efficiency of 12.6%. As the first Yb-doped ceramic laser, the result was reported by several international magazines, such as the Photonics Spectra, Optics & Laser Europe, Stp-gateway.

With improvement made to the laser system, in 2004 the laser output power was increased from 0.75W to 4.2W, and the slope efficiency from 12% to 29%. This experimental result clearly demonstrated the potential of the ceramic laser for practical applications and the result was reported by the magazine Photonics Spectra in a feature article (August 2004).

The slope efficiency of the laser was further increased to 82% in 2007, the highest efficiency ever achieved by the solid-state lasers. Subsequently, the team also demonstrated a high power self-started mode-locking of the diode pumped Yb:Y2O3 ceramic laser, and achieved mode-locked operation with 1.1ps mode locked pulse width and 2.7W average output power. Notably, the research on the Yb:Y2O3 ceramic laser also revealed an interesting random wavelength emission feature of the laser.