Thermo-Mechanical and Optical Analysis and Modeling for a Diamond-Cooled Solid-State Nd: YAG Laser

摘要

In 2000, Textron Systems Corporation (TSC) initiated the development of an advanced diamond cooled solid-state laser concept suitable for ultra compact medium and high-power lasers. The resulting laser configuration is applicable to laser diode pumping and a wide variety of lasing materials. In order to further improve the performance and determine the limitation of this laser concept, the detailed physical understanding of the interface between diamond and YAG disks was identified as a critical issue. Numerical analyses had been conducted for investigating the thermal-mechanical interaction in the interface between the gain medium and the diamond disks when the lasing process is in progress. Following this analyses, a computer model has been developed to simulate the phenomena of light interaction with the active medium. Subsequently, this computer model has been applied to optimize the laser design, in which the performance in terms of efficiency and compactness for a diamond-cooled laser has shown significant improvements. The understanding of the thermo-mechanical/optical issues at the interface, in general, will be beneficial to a variety of solid-state laser design activities.