Optical compensation for thermal lensing in conductively cooled laser rod

摘要

Thermal lensing effects in a conductively cooled optically pumped laser rod are compensated by limiting the width of thermal contact between the rod surface and its supporting heat sink to an arc width of 70° to 80° and utilizing a simple cylindrical laser cavity mirror or mirrors. This limited heat sink contact produces nearly parallel isotherms in the rod which react with the laser beam so that it may be readily focused by a cylindrical beam focusing means in the laser optical resonator.