Patent ID: 7570676

Claim:
An ultraviolet, pulsed solid-state laser comprising: a solid state laser cavity defined by two end mirrors; a solid state gain crystal pumped by a semiconductor diode laser and disposed between the two end mirrors; a saturable absorber element providing passive Q-switching; a first nonlinear crystal providing frequency doubling of a fundamental infrared-wavelength laser beam into a visible-wavelength laser beam, the first nonlinear crystal being periodically poled and having at least one of material stoichiometry and doping; and a second nonlinear crystal providing nonlinear conversion of the visible-wavelength and infrared-wavelength laser beams into an ultraviolet-wavelength laser beam; wherein the second nonlinear crystal is selected from the group consisting of: periodically poled MgO-doped lithium niobate, periodically poled MgO-doped lithium tantalate, periodically poled ZnO-doped lithium niobate, periodically poled ZnO-doped lithium tantalate, periodically poled stoichiometric or near-stoichiometric lithium niobate, and periodically poled stoichiometric or near-stoichiometric lithium tantalate.