Asymmetric beam shaping of a diode-bar laser for multipass pumping of a thin-crystal laser

摘要

Two-mirror beam shaping of a 94% fill-factor laser diode bar was investigated. We show that optimal output for the purposes of end pumping was achieved by configuring the beam shaper to reformat the single row of 60 emitters into an array containing several emitters in each row. A 15 x 4 output configuration was used to end pump a Yb:S-FAP laser. A nearly on-axis multipass pumping system was developed to demonstrate how the asymmetry of the beam-shaped pump source can be exploited. (c) 2005 Optical Society of America.