Abstract

The extraction of high-power diffraction-limited beams from cw-pumped solid-state lasers is of paramount importance for a number of scientific and industrial applications. Until now Nd:YAG was the most widely used material, but it has two serious drawbacks: a strong thermal lensing that limits the input power stability range and a thermally induced birefringence that prevents the resonator from working with fundamental-mode spot sizes greater than ~1 mm even with large diameter rods.

© 1992 Optical Society of America