Design of transverse Nd doping profiles in transparent YAG ceramics for edge-pumped laser geometries

Jeffrey A. Wisdom; Romain Gaume; Roger Route; Yan Lin Aung; Akio Ikesue; Robert L. Byer

doi:10.1117/12.784319

14 February 2008 Design of transverse Nd doping profiles in transparent YAG ceramics for edge-pumped laser geometries

Jeffrey A. Wisdom, Romain Gaume, Roger Route, Yan Lin Aung, Akio Ikesue, Robert L. Byer

Proceedings Volume 6871, Solid State Lasers XVII: Technology and Devices; 68711I (2008) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.784319
Event: Lasers and Applications in Science and Engineering, 2008, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

Edge-pumping Nd:YAG laser gain media is a convenient method to couple pump power into a laser cavity. A difficulty with this geometry is that for uniformly doped materials, pump power deposited near the edge of the gain medium cannot be efficiently extracted by a diffraction-limited beam. However, ceramic Nd:YAG with smooth changes in neodymium doping level (doping profiles) can now be fabricated to ameliorate this problem. A slab engineered with a doping profile that has a higher concentration of Nd in the center, and less at the edges, would allow more pump power to be efficiently extracted by a diffraction-limited laser beam. Yet this solution poses its own problem because variations in Nd concentration introduce optical path length distortions that can significantly reduce beam quality. The variations in optical path length are predominantly from changes in the refractive index of the host due to Nd doping and spatially varying temperatures. A genetic-algorithm-based approach is presented that balances improvement in mode-overlap between excited state distribution and the signal laser beam against optical path length distortions. A doping profile was found for an edge-pumped, zig-zag slab amplifier that is expected to yield a 39% improvement in extracted power delivered into a diffraction-limited spot compared to a uniformly doped slab.

Citation Download Citation

Jeffrey A. Wisdom, Romain Gaume, Roger Route, Yan Lin Aung, Akio Ikesue, and Robert L. Byer "Design of transverse Nd doping profiles in transparent YAG ceramics for edge-pumped laser geometries", Proc. SPIE 6871, Solid State Lasers XVII: Technology and Devices, 68711I (14 February 2008); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.784319

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KEYWORDS

Doping

Neodymium

Ceramics

Refractive index

Genetic algorithms

Laser beam propagation

Nd:YAG lasers

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