A chamfered-edge-pumped planar waveguide solid-state laser

✍ Scribed by M. Gong; H. Zhang; H. Kang; D. Wang; L. Huang; P. Yan; Q. Liu

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 71 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1612-2011
• DOI: 10.1002/lapl.200810028

✦ Synopsis

A novel pump scheme-chamfered-edge-pumping was employed for pumping a planar waveguide laser: A 12 mm-long edge was chamfered as a 0.2 mm wide bevel, pump light from the fast-axis-collimated LD was focused and coupled into the crystal through the chamfered-edge with a pump efficiency of 82%. The single-clad YAG/Nd:YAG/YAG planar waveguide was fabricated by thermal bonding technology with the geometry of 12 mm×5 mm×1 mm, which Nd:YAG core was 0.2 mm thick and symmetry claddings were 0.4 mm thick. A maximum output power of 15.5 W at 1064 nm with a slop efficiency of 37%, an optical-optical conversion efficiency of 31% and a M^2^ value of 1.6 in the guided direction was achieved for a pump power of 50 W. The laser system realized a relatively high optical-optical conversion efficiency and excellent beam quality in guided direction.