High-Power CW Diode-Laser-Array-Pumped Solid-State Lasers and Efficient NonlinearOptical Frequency Conversion

摘要

During the interim period of this bridging contract, we have continued to work onthe development of high-power cw diode-laser-array-pumped solid-state lasers. Towards that end, we have built lower power lasers in order to test individual components needed for the high-power laser, specifically we have built a 1 watt ring laser and a 5 watt slab laser. The 1 watt laser was used to study the injection locking process while assembling all the necessary electronics. We have demonstrated that it is possible to injection lock a diode-pumped laser using a single piezo-mounted mirror due to the lower intrinsic laser noise compared to an arc-lamp-pumped system. This allows us to optimize the injection locking servo loop and build a more stable locking system. The 5 watt laser was used as a test bed to find a practical way to mount the slab laser while minimizing the losses that occur at the total internal reflection (TIR) points in the slab. After trying many different means of protecting the TIR surfaces, we found that a new product from DuPont, Teflon AF 1600, has all the properties needed to provide a low loss protective coating. Using this material, the laser had a cavity loss of below 2%, which allowed for efficient operation of the laser in a side-pumped design. This laser produced 5 watts of output power with a slope efficiency near 20%. Optics, Lasers, Semiconductor-diode pumping, Solid-state lasers, Nd:YAG.