High beam quality continuous-wave 320 nm UV laser from a walk-off compensated intracavity frequency-doubled Pr:YLF laser

Abstract

We report a high beam quality continuous-wave (CW) 320 nm ultra-violet (UV) laser. An end-pumped praseodymium-doped yttrium lithium fluoride (Pr:YLF) laser is constructed in a typical V-shaped cavity structure, while the UV output is obtained through intracavity frequency doubling using LiB3O5 (LBO). We investigate the dependence of the UV output power, as well as the spot profile on the LBO length, and find that the “walk-off” within LBO severely affects both the frequency-doubling efficiency and the beam quality of the UV output. Rotated twin LBO crystals are then applied to substitute for single long LBO crystal to compensate the walk-off effect, resulting in high-power 320 nm output up to 410 mW under the absorbed pump power of 4.0 W at 444 nm, with a high beam quality of M x 2=1.02 and M y 2=1.04.