Optically triggered Cr:YAG Q-switched Nd:YAG laser

The method of optical triggering using a brass board architecture for a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser by direct bleaching of a Cr:YAG saturable absorber was determined to be effective in reducing the pulse-to-pulse timing jitter. A miniaturized triggering setup was employed to enable the brass board operation of the optically triggered laser. A 3mm wide minilaser diode bar (1024nm) with collimated emission was mounted on a compact heat sink and used to bleach the Cr:YAG saturable absorber from a direction orthogonal to the lasing axis. A compact 300A pulse driver, with <0.5 μs rise time and 3-5 μs duration, was developed for pulsing the 3mm diode bar. These components were combined to demonstrate a compact brassboard implementation of the optically triggered passively Q-switched laser.