Expand this Topic clickable element to expand a topic
Skip to content
Optica Publishing Group
  • CLEO/Europe and EQEC 2009 Conference Digest
  • (Optica Publishing Group, 2009),
  • paper CA1_4

Six-fold Residual Birefringence in Radially-Polarized High-Power Nd:YAG Laser Rods

Not Accessible

Your library or personal account may give you access

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

PDF Article
More Like This
Maintaining radial-polarization and beam-quality in muli-kW rod-based lasers through the use of polycrystalline Nd:YAG rods

Inon Moshe, Steven Jackel, Yaakov Lumer, Avi Meir, Revital Feldman, and Yehoshua Shimony
CA9_5 The European Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO/Europe) 2011

Beam quality improvement in thermally birefringent Nd:YAG laser amplifiers by use of radially polarized beams

I. Moshe, S. Jackel, and A. Meir
MB8 Advanced Solid-State Photonics (ASSL) 2004

Beam quality improvement in thermally birefringent Nd:YAG laser amplifiers by use of radially polarized beams

I. Moshe, S. Jackel, and A. Meir
263 Advanced Solid-State Photonics (ASSL) 2004

Select as filters


Select Topics Cancel
© Copyright 2024 | Optica Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved