Chun Tang

High-efficiency, high-average-power, CW Yb:YAG zigzag slab master oscillator power amplifier at room temperature.

We demonstrate a high-efficiency, high-average-power, CW master oscillator power amplifier based on a conduction-cooled, end-pumped Yb:YAG slab architecture at room temperature (RT). Firstly, the CW amplification property is theoretically analyzed based on the kinetics model for Yb:YAG. To realize high-efficiency laser amplification extraction for RT Yb:YAG, not only intense pump but also a high-power seed laser is of great importance. Experimentally, a composite Yb:YAG crystal slab with three doped and two un-doped segments symmetrically is employed as the gain medium, which is end-pumped by two high-power, 940-nm diode lasers. A high-power, narrow-spectral-width, 1030-nm fiber seed laser then double passes the composite slab to realize efficient power amplification. For 0.8-kW seed input, maximum output power of 3.54 kW is obtained at 6.7 kW of pump power, with the optical conversion efficiency of 41% and the highest slope efficiency of 59%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest power and efficiency reported for Yb:YAG lasing at RT except thin-disk lasers.

Performance of large aperture tapered fiber phase conjugate mirror with high pulse energy and 1-kHz repetition rate

A large aperture fused silica tapered fiber phase conjugate mirror is presented with a maximum 70% stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) reflectivity, which is obtained with 1 kHz repetition rate, 15 ns pulse width and 38 mJ input pulse energy. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest SBS reflectivity ever reported by using optical fiber as a phase conjugate mirror for such high pulse repetition rate (1 kHz) and several tens of millijoule (mJ) input pulse energy. The influences of fiber end surface quality and pump pulse widths on SBS reflectivity are investigated experimentally. The results show that finer fiber end surface quality and longer input pulse widths are preferred for obtaining higher SBS reflectivity with higher input pulse energy. Double passing amplification experiments are also performed. 52 mJ pulse energy is achieved at 1 kHz repetition rate, with a reflected SBS pulse width of 1.5 ns and a M(2) factor of 2.3. The corresponding peak power reaches 34.6 MW. Obvious beam quality improvement is observed.

Thermal unbalance by an amplified spontaneous emission absorber in an Nd:YAG thin-disk laser.

We investigate heat generation in a Nd:YAG thin-disk laser composite with an undoped anti-amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) cap and a side ASE absorber under lasing and nonlasing conditions. The heat load unbalance in three different regions induces a large transverse temperature inhomogeneity under the nonlasing condition. The additional heat fraction generated by the concentration quenching is observed.

A coupling model for amplified spontaneous emission in laser resonators

The competition between amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) and main laser in solid-state laser resonators is investigated both theoretically and experimentally. A coupled model using the spatial volume integral instead of the Monte Carlo type raytrace technique is proposed to depict ASE in the laser resonators. This model is able to evaluate all possible reflections at both the polishing surface and the diffusive side, to calculate ASE for an inhomogeneous gain distribution, and to include the spectral correction. An experiment is carefully designed to verify the theoretical model and to investigate the distinct physical properties caused by the coupling between ASE and the laser oscillations. The experimental data exhibit an excellent agreement with the theoretical predictions. According to that model, we confirm that ASE in thin-disk lasers can be characterized approximately by the product of the threshold gain of the resonator and the diameter of the disks, as laser modes are highly overlapped with the pumping beam. Theoretical evaluation shows that the scattering characteristic of the disk side impacts on ASE significantly. Furthermore, we point out that ASE decreases output laser power by affecting threshold pumping power, while slope efficiency is not changed by ASE. This observation provides us with a simple way to estimate the decrease of the optical efficiency by ASE.

High-average power disk laser face-pumped by 2D-stack diode arrays

Thin disk laser is the most successful design to overcome the degradation of the beam quality caused by the gain mediums thermal effects and has many advantages in beam quality keeping and power scalability over the traditional rod and slab laser. In this paper a different type thin disk laser with the large-aperture Nd:YAG disk face-pumped by 2D-stack diode arrays was presented. Over 3kW average power with the beam quality less than 10 times diffraction limitation was achieved by optimizing the pumping optics designs and improving the gain medium mounting technique.

944 mJ Nd:YAG planar waveguide laser amplifier with the optical to optical efficiency of 52%

We demonstrated a quasi-continuous wave (QCW) Nd:YAG planar waveguide laser amplifier with the single pulse output energy of 944 mJ. At the pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of 100 Hz, 1064 nm seed laser was coupled into the planar waveguide laser amplifier with the single pulse energy of 128 mJ and the pulse duration of 192 μs. With the total pump energy of 1582 mJ, the extracted energy of 816 mJ was obtained, leading to an optical to optical efficiency of 52% and an electrical to optical efficiency of 28%. To the best our knowledge, it is up to now the highest efficiency and output energy in Nd:YAG planar waveguide laser amplifier reported. At the maximum output, the beam quality factors M2 were measured to be 3.44 and 4.81 in the guided direction and unguided direction respectively, and the polarization degree was 98.6%. Higher average power could be obtained with the better performance of seeder oscillator.

Nd:YAG thin-disk laser with large dynamic range unstable resonance

In this paper, based on the self-reproduction condition of laser wavefront curvature, the influences of disk defocus on laser parameters can be calculated. The laser-pumping overlapping efficiency will decrease by 9%; the magnification will rise to 2.3, and the intra-cavity loss will be high to 30% due to a laser beam size mismatch when each disk has focal length of -100 m in a positive-branch confocal unstable resonator containing four disks with magnification of 1.8. Therefore, the optical conversion efficiency and stability will be reduced significantly. Several methods defocus compensation of are compared, it can be found that inserting variable-focus lens in resonant is useful in large dynamic range. In experiment, the defocus values are measured in different pumping power. A lens group, used for compensate components according to the single pass probe, is carefully designed. Under this compensation, the pulse energy can be maintained in 10 J from 1 Hz to 100 Hz. The output power can be improved 2.33 times compared to non-compensation condition.

The design and experiment research of high brightness all-fiberized ytterbium doped laser operating near 980 nm

The effect of the pump source and the gain fiber on the output properties of ytterbium doped fiber laser (YDFL) work near 980 nm are analyzed theoretically. Base on this analysis, we design a high power all fiberized ytterbium doped laser operating near 980 nm with a core/cladding of 80/130 μm. A 980 nm YDFL experimental setup was constructed, 16.7W 980 nm fiber laser was achieved with an optical-optical conversion efficiency of 32.4%.

Study on the amplifier experiment of end-pumped long pulse slab laser

The amplifier experiment research of end-pumped long pulse slab laser is developed, the results of out-put energy, optical-optical efficiency and pulse waveform are obtained at different experiment conditions, such as peak pumped power, amplifier power and pumped pulse width. The seed laser is CW fundamental transverse-mode operation fiber laser, the laser medium is composited Nd:YAG slab. Under end-pumped and the 2 passes, the laser obtain 7.65J out-put energy and 43.1% optical-optical efficiency with 45kW peak-pumped power and 386μs pump pulse width. The experimental results provide the basic for the optimization design to high frequency, high energy and high beam-quality slab lasers.

High beam quality and high energy short-pulse laser with MOPA

A high energy, high beam quality short-pulse diode-pumped Nd:YAG master oscillator power-amplifier (MOPA) laser with two amplifier stages is demonstrated. The two-rod birefringence compensation was used as beam quality controlling methods, which presents a short-pulse energy of 40 mJ with a beam quality value of M2 = 1.2 at a repetition rate of 400Hz. The MOPA system delivers a short-pulse energy of 712.5 mJ with a pulse width of 12.4 ns.The method of spherical aberration compensation is improved the beam quality, a M2 factor of 2.3 and an optical-to-optical efficiency of 27.7% is obtained at the maximum laser out power.The laser obtained 1.4J out energy with polarization integration.