Abstract
A comparative study of the flash-lamp pumped laser performance of standard b-grown Nd:KGW and Nd:KGW grown for propagation along the optical axis N-g is presented. The results show that, in comparison with b-grown crystal, the N-g-grown Nd:KGW is very promising for use at high repetition flash-lamp pumping rates. With the same laser cavity configuration, the N-g-grown Nd:KGW can operate at an average flash-lamp input power of at least 1.4 kW, while the b-cut one ceases lasing at average flash-lamp input power of similar to 0.5 kW. The reason for this is that the thermal lens induced in the N-g-oriented Nd:KGW rod under pump radiation is relatively weak, nearly spherical and positive, whereas the b-grown Nd:KGW rod acts as a quite weak positive lens for radiation with radial polarization, and as a much stronger negative lens for tangentially polarized radiation.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 39-43 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Applied Physics B: Lasers and Optics |
Volume | 89 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2007 |
Keywords
- potassium gadolinium tungstate
- monoclinic KGD(WO4)(2)
- YAG
- crystals