Nd laser pumped by laser diodes. Professional paper

Technical Report · Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 1989

OSTI ID:7196169

Scheps, R

Performance data for laser diode pumped cw Nd:BEL and Nd :YAG lasers are presented. Two phased laser diode arrays are used as the pump source, each emitting 500 mW. The heat sink for the arrays is temperature controlled to allow for wavelength tunability. A Nd:YAG rod was pumped under similiar conditions and the results are compared. Although the absorption bandwidth for Nd:BEL is substantially broader than for Nd:YAG, the Nd:BEL was found to have a higher threshold for lasing. Both rods had slope efficiencies of 42 percent. The dependence of the output mirror reflectivity was measured, with Nd:BEL showing a greater sensitivity to reflectivity than Nd:YAG. The optimum reflectivities were found to be .98 and .97 for Nd:BEL and Nd:YAG respectively. The maximum TEMOO cw power achieved for each rod at these reflectivities was 250 mW for Nd:BEL and 283 mW for Nd:YAG. We conclude that under the conditions used in this work, both BEL and YAG hosts perform comparably. Measurements of higher output power and efficiency have recently been made using two 1-watt single stripe laser diodes as the pump source, and these results are given as well.

• Research Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center, San Diego, CA (USA)
• OSTI ID: 7196169
• Report Number(s): AD-A-216331/9/XAB
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Pub. in Chemical Propulsion Information Agency Publication 492, Vol. 1, 171-172(Jun 1988)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
NEODYMIUM LASERS
PERFORMANCE
ABSORPTION SPECTRA
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
HEAT SINKS
MIRRORS
OPTICAL PUMPING
POWER
REFLECTIVITY
RODS
SENSITIVITY
TEMPERATURE CONTROL
TUNING
CONTROL
LASERS
OPTICAL PROPERTIES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PUMPING
SINKS
SOLID STATE LASERS
SPECTRA
SURFACE PROPERTIES
426002* - Engineering- Lasers & Masers- (1990-)