End-pumped Nd:YVO 4 laser with reduced thermal lensing via the use of a ring-shaped pump beam

A simple approach for alleviating thermal lensing in end-pumped solid-state lasers using a pump beam with a ring-shaped intensity distribution to decrease the radial temperature gradient is described. This scheme has been implemented in a diode-end-pumped Nd:YVO laser yielding 14 W of TEM output at...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics letters 2017-08, Vol.42 (15), p.2910
Main Authors: Lin, Di, Andrew Clarkson, W
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A simple approach for alleviating thermal lensing in end-pumped solid-state lasers using a pump beam with a ring-shaped intensity distribution to decrease the radial temperature gradient is described. This scheme has been implemented in a diode-end-pumped Nd:YVO laser yielding 14 W of TEM output at 1.064 μm with a corresponding slope efficiency of 53% and a beam propagation factor (M ) of 1.08 limited by available pump power. By comparison, the same laser design with a conventional quasi-top-hat pump beam profile of approximately equal radial extent yielded only 9 W of output before the power rolled over due to thermal lensing. Further investigation with the aid of a probe beam revealed that the thermal lens power was ∼30% smaller for the ring-shaped pump beam compared to the quasi-top-hat beam. The implications for further power scaling in end-pumped laser configurations are considered.
ISSN:0146-9592
1539-4794
DOI:10.1364/OL.42.002910