Cooling schemes for longitudinally diode laser-pumped Nd:YAG rods

Author

Weber, R. ; Neuenschwander, B. ; Donald, M. Mac ; Roos, M.B. ; Weber, Heinz P.

Author_Institution

Inst. of Appl. Phys., Bern Univ., Switzerland

Volume

34

Issue

6

fYear

1998

fDate

6/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1046

Lastpage

1053

Abstract

Longitudinal diode laser pumping causes pronounced inhomogeneous heating of the laser material. The effect of the thermal load on the mechanical and optical properties is significantly influenced by the method used for cooling the pumped surface. Four methods for longitudinally pumped Nd:YAG rods were compared experimentally and with finite-element (FE) analysis. The pumped surface exposed to air or to flowing water, a sapphire plate pressed onto the pumped surface and composite rods, having an undoped pumped end, were investigated. The comparison includes temperature and stress distributions with the emphasis on thermal lensing. Careful validation of the FE code with experiments allowed to numerically comparing the cooling methods under identical conditions

Keywords

codes; cooling; finite element analysis; laser theory; neodymium; optical pumping; solid lasers; FE code; YAG:Nd; YAl5O12:Nd; composite rods; cooling methods; cooling schemes; finite-element analysis; flowing water; inhomogeneous heating; laser material; longitudinally diode laser-pumped Nd:YAG rods; longitudinally pumped Nd:YAG rods; mechanical properties; optical properties; pumped surface; pumped surface cooling; sapphire plate; stress distributions; thermal lensing; thermal load; undoped pumped end; Cooling; Diode lasers; Heat pumps; Iron; Laser excitation; Optical materials; Optical pumping; Pump lasers; Thermal loading; Thermal stresses;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.678602

Filename

678602