High-power laser performance of a-cut and c-cut Yb:LuVO_4 crystals

We report high-power laser operation that was achieved with a-cut and c-cut Yb:LuVO(4) crystals. Up to 8.3 W of pi-polarized output power was generated from an a-cut, 2 mm uncoated crystal with an optical conversion efficiency of 59%. The highest slope efficiency was 80%. Laser oscillation obtained with c-cut crystal was also linearly polarized, with two orthogonal polarization components along [110] and [(-)110] directions. The highest output power achieved was 4.5 W, with an optical conversion efficiency of 33% and a slope efficiency of 40%.