Abstract

High-power solid-state lasers with high beam quality are needed for many scientific and industrial applications. Thermal aberration effects in laser or amplifying material occurring at high optical intensities present one of the most critical limiting factors to achieve high-efficiency single-spatial-mode operation. To compensate for wavefront distortions and thermal lensing effects, optical phase conjugate mirrors (PCMs) based on photorefractive materials present an attractive solution, as demonstrated for several lasers and amplifiers from cw to ps regime using BaTiO₃:Rh crystals [1-3]. The main problem of such systems is the very long temporal response of BaTiO₃:Rh (seconds/minutes) as well as its tendency of domain formation.

© 2009 IEEE