Modeling of distributed-side-pumped slab lasers: power scaling by adding slab units

摘要

A novel distributed-side-pumped configuration is presented for power scaling of solid-state slab lasers, which combines the advantages of both end-pumped and side-pumped geometries, realizing large absorption length and large pump area at the same time. In the distributed-side-pumped slab laser, the long gain medium can be divided into multiple segments (slab units), each of which adopts an end-pumped like geometry, thus the pump uniformity and the utilization ratio of the whole slab are greatly improved comparing to the end-pumped scheme. Furthermore, this configuration decouples the pump windows from the cooling areas, avoiding the necessity of water sealing the optical surfaces. The parameters of gain medium and pumping system are carefully optimized, while numerical calculation of thermal effects for composite slab and homogeneous slab are compared. An oscillator based the Nd:YAG slab that includes 5 slab units, is expected to produce CW output at 1 kW level, with the optical-optical efficiency of 52.6%. By adding more slab units, the distributed-side-pumped slab laser can be enhanced easily and efficiently.