Abstract
Even weak atmospheric absorption can cause degradation in laser performance not only by extracting energy from the laser but more importantly by establishing a thermally induced lees in the atmosphere. Under certain operating conditions, this lensing can be severe and profoundly change the resonator parameters. Severe degradation in laser performance has been noticed in an injection-seeded Ti:Al2O3 laser, where the absorption coefficient was less than 0.003 m‐1. To characterize the atmospheric thermal lensing, a model was developed which describes both an equivalent focal length of the atmospheric lens and its temporal behavior for a pulsed laser. An injection-seeded Ti:Al2O3 was then used to confirm the validity of the model.
© 1994 Optical Society of America
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