The influence of thermally induced effects on operation of a compact diode-side-pumped Nd : YVO4 laser

摘要

The thermally induced effects (thermal lensing and thermal wedging) induced in the grazing-incidence side-pumped Nd:YVO4 laser geometry at high-power laser diode pumping are numerically modeled and analyzed. The 3D temperature distributions and the corresponding thermally induced lens in the Nd:YVO4 slab are calculated for straight and zigzag paths of the laser beam inside the crystal. An analysis of two compact (semimonolithic) cw diode-side-pumped, grazing-incidence geometry Nd:YVO4 laser designs is presented. A laser output power of 5 W (lambda = 1064 nm) was produced at 17 W of diode pumping (conversion efficiency of 30%) in single TEM00 mode operation at high quality (M-x(2) approximate to 1.05 and M-y(2) approximate to 1.01) of the laser beam. The resonators' geometry was analyzed by applying a generalized 4 x 4 matrix modeling of the spatial mode distribution, including the impact on laser operation of the cavity astigmatism and a thermal lens induced in the laser slab. [References: 28]