Transverse intensity transformation by laser amplifiers

Igor A. Litvin; Gary King; Oliver J. P. Collett; Hencharl J. Strauss

doi:10.1117/12.2077586

3 March 2015 Transverse intensity transformation by laser amplifiers

Igor A. Litvin, Gary King, Oliver J. P. Collett, Hencharl J. Strauss

Proceedings Volume 9343, Laser Resonators, Microresonators, and Beam Control XVII; 93430S (2015) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2077586
Event: SPIE LASE, 2015, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Lasers beams with a specific intensity profile such as super–Gaussian, Airy or Dougnut-like are desirable in many applications such as laser materials processing, medicine and communications. We propose a new technique for laser beam shaping by amplifying a beam in an end-pumped bulk amplifier that is pumped with a beam that has a modified intensity profile. Advantages of this method are that it is relatively easy to implement, has the ability to reshape multimode beams and is naturally suited to high power/energy beams. Both three and four level gain materials can be used as amplifier media. However, a big advantage of using three level materials is their ability to attenuate of the seed beam, which enhances the contrast of the shaping.

We first developed a numerical method to obtain the required pump intensity for an arbitrary beam transformation. This method was subsequently experimentally verified using a three level system. The output of a 2.07 μm seed laser was amplified in a Ho:YLF bulk amplifier which was being pumped by a 1.89 μm Tm:YLF laser which had roughly a TEM10 Hermit Gaussian intensity profile. The seed beam was amplified from 0.3 W to 0.55 W at the full pump power of 35 W. More importantly, the beam profile in one transverse direction was significantly shaped from Gaussian to roughly flat-top, as the model predicted. The concept has therefore been shown to be viable and can be used to optimise the beam profile for a wide range of applications.

Citation Download Citation

Igor A. Litvin, Gary King, Oliver J. P. Collett, and Hencharl J. Strauss "Transverse intensity transformation by laser amplifiers", Proc. SPIE 9343, Laser Resonators, Microresonators, and Beam Control XVII, 93430S (3 March 2015); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2077586

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KEYWORDS

Beam shaping

Crystals

Amplifiers

Laser crystals

Laser amplifiers

Numerical analysis

Optical amplifiers

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