Demonstration of a radiatively cooled laser

Summary form only given. We have developed a new optical pumping technique that minimizes the thermal loading in a solid-state laser system. This technique incorporates optical cooling directly into a laser medium. Lasing conditions were studied in which the waste heat required by stimulated emission is offset by cooling from anti-Stokes spontaneous emission. We call this condition a radiation balanced laser. Under ideal conditions, the heat load within the lasing medium can be completely eliminated. Perturbation analysis of the RBL condition reveals that thermal loads in the range of 5 W/cm/sup 3/ should be obtainable in scalable solid-state laser designs such as for Yb:KGd(WO/sub 4/)/sub 2/ lasers.