Efficient corner-pumped Yb:YAG/YAG composite slab laser

Mali Gong; Fuyuan Lu; Qiang Liu; Wupeng Gong; Chen Li

doi:10.1364/ao.45.003806

Efficient corner-pumped Yb:YAG/YAG composite slab laser

Appl Opt. 2006 Jun 1;45(16):3806-10. doi: 10.1364/ao.45.003806.

Authors

Mali Gong¹, Fuyuan Lu, Qiang Liu, Wupeng Gong, Chen Li

Affiliation

¹ Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanology, Center of Photonics and Electronics, State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.

PMID: 16724142
DOI: 10.1364/ao.45.003806

Abstract

A high efficiency Yb:YAG/YAG composite slab laser is presented, in which the corner-pumped scheme is adopted. The slab is a composite crystal of Yb:YAG bonded thermally with undoped YAG at both edges. The pump light from diode arrays is coupled into the slab through four chamfers at the four corners independently. The pump absorption efficiency is studied, and an analysis method has been developed as a guide to optimize the geometric parameters of the composite slab, to obtain higher pump absorption efficiency and uniformity. The influence of the internal thermal lens on the laser resonator is analyzed. A 1016 W continuous-wave output has been obtained with the slope efficiency and optical-to-optical efficiency of 42.8% and 34.4%, respectively.