激光二极管抽运的被动调Q固体激光器不仅结构简单、紧凑,而且由于采用端面抽运的方式有效地耦合了抽运光和激光可以获得高光束质量的激光输出,同时由于其独特的短腔长从而可以实现亚纳秒、高峰值功率的激光输出,在激光加工、激光通信、医疗、生物和材料微结构分析等方面有非常广阔的应用前景。在过去的十多年里,采用掺镱离子(Yb³⁺)的激光材料作为激光增益介质,用Cr4+:YAG和半导体可饱和吸收镜等作为被动调Q开关的被动调Q微片激光器取得了长足的进展,不仅获得与基于掺钕离子激光材料作为增益介质所实现的相同的高峰值功率被动调Q激光输出,而且在激光效率及激光设计的灵活性方面凸显出了明显的优点。系统地介绍了基于掺Yb³⁺离子激光材料作为激光增益介质实现被动调Q微片激光器的研究进展及其在未来的发展趋势。

Laser-diode pumped passively Q-switched solid-state lasers,with compact configuration,excellent beam quality owing to good match-up of pump and laser light,easy to achieve sub-nanosecond pulse width and high peak power, have widely applications in laser processing,telecommunications,surgery,biology,material microstructure analysis and so on.In the past decade,dramatic progresses have been made in passively Q-switched solid-state lasers based on ytterbium doped laser material and saturable absorber such as Cr4+:YAG,semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM).Passively Q-switched Yb³⁺ doped solid-state lasers have achieved not only the same high peak power output,but also with better efficiency and flexible designs.The progresses and future work on passively Q-switched Yb³⁺ doped laser materials microchip lasers have been overviewed.