Near-diffraction-limited high power cw Nd:YAG laser using the spherical aberration of laser rods

Author

Bonnefois, A. Montmerle ; Gilbert, M. ; Thro, P.-Y.

Author_Institution

Lab. Interaction Laser-Matiere, CEA-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

fYear

2005

fDate

12-17 June 2005

Firstpage

88

Abstract

In this work we propose a simple configuration with a single Nd:YAG oscillator which is very promising, we already obtained 215 W cw output power with a M² factor of M²=1.3/1.5 The optical to optical efficiency is 10.4%. The experiments were made with a "classical" cavity, based on two Nd:YAG rods with divergent lenses compensating for the thermal lensing and a polarization rotator compensating for the bifocusing. The resonator has a maximum M of approximately 6. At the limit of stability zone, we obtained a stable beam with 215 W cw output power with an M of 1.3/1.5. The total optical pump power was 2080 W. The optical-to-optical efficiency is 10.4 %.

Keywords

aberrations; laser beams; laser cavity resonators; lenses; neodymium; optical pumping; solid lasers; thermal lensing; 2080 W; 215 W; Nd:YAG laser; YAG:Nd; YAl5O12:Nd; bifocusing; divergent lenses; laser rod; near-diffraction-limited high power laser; optical pump power; optical to optical efficiency; polarization rotator; resonator; spherical aberration; thermal lensing; Laser beams; Laser stability; Lenses; Optical pumping; Optical resonators; Oscillators; Power generation; Power lasers; Pump lasers; Thermal lensing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe, 2005. CLEO/Europe. 2005 Conference on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8974-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CLEOE.2005.1567876

Filename

1567876