Paper
3 April 2000 High-average-power diode-pumped Yb:YAG lasers
Raymond J. Beach, Eric C. Honea, Steven B. Sutton, Camille M. Bibeau, Jay A. Skidmore, Mark A. Emanuel, Stephen A. Payne, Petras V. Avizonis, R. S. Monroe, Dennis G. Harris
Author Affiliations +
Proceedings Volume 3889, Advanced High-Power Lasers; (2000) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.380891
Event: Advanced High-Power Lasers and Applications, 1999, Osaka, Japan
Abstract
A scaleable diode end-pumping technology for high-average- power slab and rod lasers has been under development for the past several years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). This technology has particular application to high average power Yb:YAG lasers that utilize a rod configured gain element. Previously, this rod configured approach has achieved average output powers in a single 5 cm long by 2 mm diameter Yb:YAG rod of 430 W cw and 280 W q-switched. High beam quality (M2 equals 2.4) q-switched operation has also been demonstrated at over 180 W of average output power. More recently, using a dual rod configuration consisting of two, 5 cm long by 2 mm diameter laser rods with birefringence compensation, we have achieved 1080 W of cw output with an M2 value of 13.5 at an optical-to-optical conversion efficiency of 27.5%2. With the same dual rod laser operated in a q-switched mode, we have also demonstrated 532 W of average power with an M2 less than 2.5 at 17% optical-to-optical conversion efficiency. These q-switched results were obtained at a 10 kHz repetition rate and resulted in 77 nsec pulse durations. These improved levels of operational performance have been achieved as a result of technology advancements made in several areas that will be covered in this manuscript. These enhancements to our architecture include: (1) Hollow lens ducts that enable the use of advanced cavity architectures permitting birefringence compensation and the ability to run in large aperture-filling near-diffraction-limited modes. (2) Compound laser rods with flanged-nonabsorbing-endcaps fabricated by diffusion bonding. (3) Techniques for suppressing amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and parasitics in the polished barrel rods.
© (2000) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Raymond J. Beach, Eric C. Honea, Steven B. Sutton, Camille M. Bibeau, Jay A. Skidmore, Mark A. Emanuel, Stephen A. Payne, Petras V. Avizonis, R. S. Monroe, and Dennis G. Harris "High-average-power diode-pumped Yb:YAG lasers", Proc. SPIE 3889, Advanced High-Power Lasers, (3 April 2000); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.380891
Lens.org Logo
CITATIONS
Cited by 13 scholarly publications.
Advertisement
Advertisement
RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS
Get copyright permission  Get copyright permission on Copyright Marketplace
KEYWORDS
Rod lasers

Diodes

Semiconductor lasers

Laser development

Polishing

Laser applications

Optical pumping

RELATED CONTENT


Back to Top