Abstract

High-power solid state lasers show usually bad beam quality of more than ten times diffraction-limited. The distortions are generated by the thermally induced lensing and birefringence in the active material. Phase conjugating mirrors based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) can be applied for improving these lasers up to the theoretical limit. Particularly, these new elements allow the construction of highly pumped lasers with diffraction-limited beam quality with inexpensive laser rods instead of slabs.

© 1994 IEEE