Performance Improvement of Long Pulse Nd:YAG Laser Using Advanced Diffuse Ceramic Reflectors

摘要

Performance of high average power flash lamp pumped Nd:YAG laser has been improved using advanced diffuse ceramic reflector. In long pulse (ms) laser operation, 494 W of average output power has been achieved at an electrical input pump power of 10 kW with a higher slope efficiency of 5.14%. The pulse duration can be varied in the range of 1-40 ms. It was found that ceramic reflector provides better beam quality, efficiency, and long life as compared to gold-coated elliptical reflector. The laser system was optimized to provide a beam quality with M~2 ～45 for the multimode operation. Output laser beam was efficiently coupled through an optical fiber of 400 μm core diameter with a transmission efficiency of 90% for laser material processing applications.