Operation of a passively mode-locked Tm:YAG laser with tantalum aluminum carbide as a saturable absorber

In this paper, a compact diode-pumped continuous wave (CW) and passively Q-switched mode-locked (QML) Tm:YAG lasers operation on the F-3(4)-H-3(6) transition is realized by using tantalum aluminum carbide (Ta4AlC3) phase ceramic (MAX) material as a saturable absorber (SA). The first stable QML operation of the mid-infrared Tm:YAG laser at 2012.38 nm is demonstrated with a Ta4AlC3-SA. A stable QML Tm:YAG laser was achieved when the absorption pumping power reached 14 W. Under QML mode, Tm:YAG laser generated a maximum average output power of 560 mW at 2012.38 nm with an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 4%, corresponding to a shortest pulse duration of 541 ps and a high repetition rate of 168 MHz. The experiment shows that Ta4AlC3-SA is an attractive candidate for diode-pumped CW and QML mid-infrared all-solid-state lasers emitting around 2.0 mu m.