An off-axis pumped Nd:YAG/Cr ⁴⁺ :YAG laser under different degenerate cavity conditions has been thoroughly studied to generate high-pulse-energy geometric modes for further beam transformation. Because of the employment of Nd:YAG gain crystal provides a flexible choice of cavity length to achieve efficient passively Q-switched (PQS) operation, various PQS geometric modes with stable spatial structures are generated. Moreover, it is experimentally confirmed that the output energy and peak power of the PQS geometric modes can easily reach up to over 100 μJ and 10 kW with fairly stable pulse trains in pure linear polarization. By using an astigmatic mode converter (AMC) to transform the planar geometric modes into the circular geometric modes, various high-energy vortex beams with large angular momentum and diverse phase structures are successfully realized to offer a promising light source for further application. The propagation evolution of the transformed geometric modes through the AMC was also analyzed theoretically to offer useful insights for the formation of the geometric vortex beams.

A continuous-wave (cw) self-mode-locked Tm:YAG laser at 2015 nm is successfully demonstrated by suppressing the self-pulsing behavior. By using rate equations to simulate the laser temporal dynamic, the theoretical analysis indicates that the reabsorption-induced self-pulsing for the Tm:YAG laser can be suppressed with sufficient pump power. It is experimentally confirmed that at absorbed powers higher than 6 W, the self-pulsing can be eliminated and a cw self-mode-locked pulse is generated instead of the $Q$-switched mode locking. At an absorbed power of 6.8 W, the output power of the self-mode-locked Tm:YAG laser reaches 1.22 W with corresponding pulse duration of 3 ps and a repetition rate of 3.376 GHz.

A new diffusion-bonded Nd:YVO ₄ /Nd:GdVO ₄ hetero-structure crystal with oblique interface between two vanadate materials is exploited to achieve dual-wavelength passively mode-locked laser with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. Experimental results show that the power ratio of the two emission wavelengths can be flexibly adjusted by controlling the vertical position of pump beam. In the optimally balanced dual-wavelength operation, the maximum total output power of 2.5 W is obtained at an incident pump power of 11 W and the pulse width is measured to be 24.7 ps with pulse repetition rate of 296.6 MHz. The mode-locked output pulse is further found to exhibit an optically beating with pulse duration of 1.8 ps at a repetition rate of 0.318 THz.

The stable condition for π-polarization emission in an a-cut Nd:YLF laser is numerical analyzed to find the critical pump power for generating the orthogonally polarized emission. With the numerical analysis, an orthogonally polarized SML lasers at wavelength of 1047 nm and 1053 nm is experimentally achieved in a simple concave-plano cavity without any additional optical element. It is experimentally observed that the polarization switching and coexistence was successfully demonstrated by introducing gain competition and anisotropic thermal lens effect. In the orthogonal polarization mode-locked operation, the pulse durations are found to be 19.1 and 18.8 ps for π- and σ-polarization with pulse repetition rates of 3.85 and 3.89 GHz, respectively.