Experimental investigation of the pulse width of a diode-pumped acousto-optically Q -switched Tm:YAG laser

We study a pulsed laser-diode-pumped acousto-optically (AO) Q-switched Tm:YAG laser. To satisfy the requirements of a wind measurement lidar, we investigate experimentally the factors influencing the output-pulse width in a thermal compensating linear laser cavity. We show that the laser-pulse width is not only influenced by the pumping intensity of the diode lasers, the laser-cavity length, and the transmissivity of the output coupler, but also depends on the stimulated emission cross-section of the laser media.