${\mathrm{Cr}}^{3+}$ doped colquiriites are promising solid-state gain media for developing inexpensive and highly efficient tunable continuous-wave (cw) and femtosecond lasers. Among ${\mathrm{Cr}}^{3+}$ doped colquiriites, ${\mathrm{Cr}}^{3+}:\mathrm{Li}\mathrm{CAF}$ has superior thermal properties enabling high-power operation with standard laser cavities. In this study we present detailed laser experiments with ${\mathrm{Cr}}^{3+}:\mathrm{Li}\mathrm{CAF}$ , which achieve laser performance approaching that of the much more expensive Ti:sapphire laser technology. Inexpensive, new, multimode $(\sim 1.5\mathrm{W})$ and single-mode $(\sim 150\mathrm{mW})$ diode lasers were used as pump sources. With multimode diode pumping, cw output powers exceeding $1\mathrm{W}$ and mode-locked pulse energies as high as $2.8\mathrm{nJ}$ were obtained. Using single-mode diode pumping, up to $280\mathrm{mW}$ of cw output power with 54% slope efficiency and continuous tuning between 765 and $865\mathrm{nm}$ were demonstrated. In cw mode-locking, $72\mathrm{fs}$ , $1.4\mathrm{nJ}$ pulses were obtained, and an electrical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 7.8% was demonstrated.

© 2008 Optical Society of America

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