Nd:YVO4 (Neodymium
Doped Yttrium Orthovanadate) crystals is one of the most promising
commercially available diode pumped solid state laser materials, especially, for
low to middle power density. This is mainly for its higher absorption and emission
features than Nd:YAG crystal. Pumped by laser diodes, Nd:YVO4 crystal has been
incorporated with high NLO coefficient crystals ( LBO, BBO, or KTP) to
frequency-shift the output from the near infrared to green, blue, or even UV. This
incorporation to construct all solid state lasers is an ideal laser tool that
can cover the most widespread applications of lasers, including machining,
material processing, spectroscopy, wafer inspection, light displays, medical
diagnostics, laser printing, and data storage, etc. It has been shown that
Nd:YVO4 based diode pumped solid state lasers are rapidly occupying the markets
traditionally dominated by water-cooled ion lasers and lamp-pumped lasers,
especially when compact design and single-longitudinal-mode outputs are
required.
