Garnet chip laser pumped by an InGaAsP/GaAs laser

Miniature monolithic solid-state YAG:Nd³⁺ ring lasers (chip lasers) with a planar or a nonplanar ring resonator and a highly efficient pumping by a quantum-well semiconductor InGaAsP/GaAs laser were constructed and investigated. The conditions for highly stable unidirectional and bidirectional single-frequency emission were established for these chip lasers. The dependences of the output radiation characteristics on the parameters of the ring resonator, on the pumping rate and geometry, on the intensity and orientation of an external magnetic field, and on temperature were determined. The results indicated a new opportunity for detection of nonreciprocal optical effects on the basis of splitting of the spectrum of the frequencies of antiphase oscillations of the intensities of the counterpropagating waves under self-modulation conditions.