We report a diode-end-pumped 1064-nm Nd:YVO_(4) laser passively cw mode-locked by a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. We designed a long cavity with relatively small mode size in the gain medium so that stable passive mode locking without Q-switching instabilities became possible under low pump power. At 2.42 W of pump power a mode-locked fundamental-mode average output power of 742 mW was attained with an overall optical-optical efficiency of 31percent. The pulse duration was 9.1 ps as measured at the repetition rate of 58 MHz.
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