A planar waveguide Nd : YAG laser using active Q-switching of a hybrid unstable resonator

A planar waveguide laser operating in a negative branch unstable resonator is Q-switched by an acoustooptic mod latorin anew configuration, providing effective, high-speed switching. The laser using a 200-mu m Nd:YAG core, face pumped by 10 laser diode bars, has produced 100-W output in a good beam quality at 100-kHz pulse rate, and 4.5 mJ at lower frequency with 15-ns pulse duration.

The analysis of the transient temperature distribution of double-slab Nd:YAG laser medium

A novel double-slab Nd:YAG laser, which uses face-pumped slab medium cooled by liquid with different temperatures on both sides, is proposed. The thermal distortion of wavefront caused by the non-uniform temperature distribution in the laser gain media can be self-compensated. According to the method of operation, the models of the temperature distribution and stress are presented, and the analytic solutions for the model are derived. Furthermore, the numerical simulations with pulse pumping energy of 10 J and repetition frequencies of 500 and 1000 Hz are calculated respectively for Nd:YAG laser medium. The simulation results show that the temperature gradient remains the approximative linearity, and the heat stress is within the extreme range. Then the absorption coefficient is also discussed. The result indicates that the doping concentration cannot be too large for the high repetition frequency laser. It has been proved that the high repetition frequency, high laser beam quality, and high average output power of the order of kilowatt of Nd: YAG slab laser can be achieved in this structure.