Abstract
Radial polarization is used in high-power solid-state lasers in order to overcome the thermally induced bifocusing that is the primary optical aberration when using the rod geometry [1]. Maintaining radial polarization purity is crucial for beam-quality preservation in high-power amplifiers. Working at a very high heat load of 1500W (100W/cm) in a Nd:YAG rod-based laser amplifier with radially-symmetric pumping, a six-fold deviation from radial symmetry was measured in the polarization of a probe beam after propagation through the amplifier (fig. 1(a)). Such deviation was found to originate in the laser rod itself, and was not directly connected to pump profile or the probe beam, which were measured to be radially symmetric to a high degree. The YAG rod axis was grown to be parallel to the [111] cubic crystal axis. In such growth geometry, the cubic unit-cell's projection on the cross section of the rod is in the shape of a hexagon. Therefore, a six-fold pattern is intrinsic in this geometry.
© 2009 IEEE
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