We will compare the difference of multiple Nd Doped crystal in this article

Neodymium-doped yttrium vanadate (Nd:YVO4) crystal is a kind of laser crystal with excellent performance, which is suitable for the manufacture of laser diode-pumped, especially medium and low power lasers.

Nd:YVO4 Lasers have been widely used in machinery, material processing, spectroscopy, wafer inspection, displays, medical testing, laser printing, data storage and other fields. And Nd:YVO4 Diode-pumped solid-state lasers are rapidly replacing the market for conventional water-cooled ion and lamp-pumped lasers, especially in terms of miniaturization and single longitudinal mode output.

Nd:YVO4 compared to Nd:YAG
**Higher absorption coefficient and larger stimulated emission cross section for pump light. Laser diode-pumped Nd:YVO4 crystals are used in conjunction with crystals with high nonlinear coefficients such as LBO, BBO, KTP, etc., to achieve better frequency doubling conversion efficiency, and can be made to output near-infrared, green, blue to ultraviolet and other types all-solid-state lasers. **

Advantages of Nd:YVO4 vs. Nd:YAG:

• The pump bandwidth around 808nm is about 5 times that of Nd:YAG;
• The stimulated emission cross section at 1064nm is 3 times that of Nd:YAG;
• Low laser threshold, high slope efficiency;
• Uniaxial crystal, the output is linearly polarized.

Compared with the commonly used Nd:YAG crystal, Yb:YAG crystal has a wider absorption bandwidth, which can reduce the temperature management requirements in the use of diode lasers, longer laser upper energy level life, and heat load per unit of pump power. Also 3-4 times lower. Yb:YAG crystal at 1030nm can well replace the use of Nd:YAG crystal at 1064nm, and its second harmonic at 515nm can replace Ar ion laser emitting 514nm wavelength.

Advantages of Yb:YAG crystals:

• Very low local superheat, less than 11%
• High slope performance
• Broad absorption band, about 8nm@940nm
• No excited state absorption or upconversion
• Conveniently pumped with reliable InGaAs diodes at 940nm (or 970nm)
• High thermal conductivity and high mechanical strength
• High optical quality

•Large absorption coefficient and wide absorption bandwidth, less dependence on pump wavelength;
•Good thermal conductivity
•Low laser threshold and high laser output slope efficiency
•High laser damage threshold
•Good laser output polarization
•Large stimulated emission cross section

•high efficiency
•low threshold
•Good anti-ultraviolet radiation properties
•good thermal stability
•High optical performance

Due to the W-O covalent bond, the cold shock effect of the fluorescence concentration of Nd3+ ions in KGW crystals is weakened, so this crystal has activated ions with higher doping concentration; in addition, Nd3+ ions in KGW crystals have a half-bandwidth of about 12nm at 808nm The absorption bandwidth is well matched to the emission wavelength of commercial laser diodes.