Pulse width adjustable Q-switched cavity dumped laser by rotating a quarter-wave plate and a Pockels cell.

A pulse width adjustable 1064 nm Q-switched cavity dumped Nd:YVO4 laser was realized for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, by rotating an intracavity quarter-wave plate (QWP) and a Pockels cell (PC). The pulse width adjustment range was 4.8-7.8 ns with a constant output power of 3.6 W, and it reached 4.8-13.5 ns for a lower output power of 1.3 W. The pulse width was dependent mostly on the rotating angle of the QWP and PC, but independent of the gain and pulse repetition rate.