Abstract
In end pumping with laser diodes, high TEM00 mode extraction efficiency is achieved by focusing the diode output into the TEM00 mode-volume of the gain medium. Power scaling is complicated by two issues: First, higher wattage pump powers can only be obtained from distributed diode sources such as fiber-coupled or linear arrays. This necessarily enlarges tire minimum spot size to which the output of the array can be focused, thus decreasing gain. Second, the reduced depth of focus resulting from tight focusing demands that all the pump radiation must be absorbed in a short length, increasing the thermal stresses in the laser host that induce lensing and birefringence. We describe a cw Nd:YLF laser, pumped by a 15-W cw-diode- bar, which produces 3.3 W of TEM00 output at an electrical efficiency of 7%.
© 1993 Optical Society of America
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