Double rod Nd: YAG laser with 180 W average output power and diffraction limited beam quality via path matched birefringence compensation

Martin Ostermeyer; Guido Klemz; Ralf Menzel

doi:10.1117/12.469482

6 June 2002 Double rod Nd: YAG laser with 180 W average output power and diffraction limited beam quality via path matched birefringence compensation

Martin Ostermeyer, Guido Klemz, Ralf Menzel

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 4629, Laser Resonators and Beam Control V; (2002) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.469482
Event: High-Power Lasers and Applications, 2002, San Jose, California, United States

Abstract

The rod geometry for high power solid state lasers has been proven to be both, reliable and reasonably inexpensive. On the other hand, setting up rod lasers with excellent beam quality implies a number of problems that have to be tackled. One of the most serious problems for isotropic crystals like Nd:YAG might be the effect of depolarization and bifocusing due to thermally induced birefringence (tib). The effect of tib can be compensated by a 90 degree(s) polarization rotation between two identical rods. However, because of the finite length of the laser rods in an optimized compensation scheme, matching the two paths in the two laser rods becomes necessary. By doing this, one wide stability region is yielded. The laser behaves like a single rod laser, and the beam path for the radial and tangential eigenmode becomes the same. Thereby, excellent beam qualities at high output powers can be achieved. Our Nd:YAG double rod system provides a maximum average output power of 180 W with a beam propagation factor of M²< 1.2. It is quasi cw diode pumped with a repetition rate of around 1 kHz and a pump pulse length of 250 microsecond(s) . The laser heads contain 3 star like arranged sets of diode bars being set up in a complementary position to each other. The maximum average pump power per laser head is 800 W.

Citation Download Citation

Martin Ostermeyer, Guido Klemz, and Ralf Menzel "Double rod Nd: YAG laser with 180 W average output power and diffraction limited beam quality via path matched birefringence compensation", Proc. SPIE 4629, Laser Resonators and Beam Control V, (6 June 2002); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.469482

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