Passive Q-switched operation of an a-cut Tm,Ho:YAP laser with a few-layer WS2 saturable absorber

A passive Q-switching operation of 2 µm a-cut Tm,Ho:YAP laser was experimentally demonstrated with a WS2 saturable absorber (SA) mirror. An average output power of 696 mW and a peak power of 1.79 W were acquired with the pump power of 9.26 W, corresponding to pulse widths of 9.1 and 5.6 µs and the optical-optical conversion efficiencies of 7.5% and 4.1%. The beam quality factors of and were measured at the output power of 2600 mW.