Generation of picosecond vortex beam in a self-mode-locked Nd:YVO4 laser

Abstract:

In this paper, a self-mode-locked Nd:YVO4 picosecond vortex laser is demonstrated, which can operate on the different Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) modes at 1 064 nm. A π/2 mode converter is utilized to realize the picosecond vortex laser with LG mode transformed from the high-order Hermite-Gaussian (HG) mode. For the proposed laser, the mode-locked pulse repetition rate is 1.81 GHz. The average output powers of LG12 mode and LG02 mode are 1.241 W and 1.27 W, respectively, and their slope efficiencies are 23.2% and 24%, respectively. This work has been supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.61108021), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos. 2013JBM091 and S16JB00010). E-mail:[e-mail]