Abstract
A method for simultaneously compensating thermal focussing and birefringence in uniformly pumped Nd:YAG rods has been developed. This method correctly models the transport of the radial and tangential polarization components of the incident field through the YAG rod. This code is then used to seek solutions to the problem of transporting both polarization components through an optical system containing YAG rods such that the resulting output has no residual birefringence or focussing. Such solutions do exist in the paraxial approximation for optical fields that can be decomposed into a set of TEM eigenmodes. Many previous attempts at compensation, see Koechner2, rely on just a Jones matrix approach without taking into account that the different polarization components travel separate paths and that the field vector amplitude is as important as phase when the total field is reconstructed. These other compensation schemes usually only work over a small region in the center of the rod. However, solutions can be found that use a large fraction of the gain region only limited by diffraction and the paraxial approximation.
© 1996 Optical Society of America
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