Generation of 840 mW of red light by frequency doubling a diode-pumped 1342 nm Nd:YVO4 laser with periodically-poled LiTaO3

We report an efficient generation of red light in a periodically-poled LiTaO3 (PPLT) crystal by extracavity single-pass frequency doubling of a diode-pumped, Q-switched Nd:YVO4 laser at 1342 nm. The sample used in the experiment is 20 mm in length and 14.77 mum in period. An average power of 840 mW of the 671 nm red light is obtained with a 808 nm pump of 12.3 W, the overall optical-to-optical efficiency being 6.8%. The measured effective nonlinear coefficient of the sample is similar to 3.8 pm/V. The high conversion efficiency and Output power demonstrate that the periodically-poled crystal serving as a frequency conversion device may be used in practice to construct an all-solid-state red laser based on an extracavity single-pass quasi-continuous scheme.