Nd:YGG crystal laser at 1110 nm: a potential source for detecting carbon monoxide poisoning.

We demonstrated a laser-diode pumped Nd-doped yttrium gallium garnet crystal laser at 1110 nm for the first time to our knowledge. By suppressing the oscillation at about 1.06 μm, continuous-wave output power of 2.1 W at 1110 nm was achieved. With a Cr:YAG as the saturable absorber, the passive Q-switching performance at this wavelength was obtained. The shortest pulse width and largest pulse energy were 31.5 ns and 22.7 μJ, respectively. Laser radiation at this wavelength is an important source for detecting carbon monoxide poisoning by simple frequency doubling with a nonlinear crystal.