Jianguo He

Comparative study of Nd:KGW lasers pumped at 808 nm and 877 nm

The laser performance and thermal analysis of Nd:KGW laser continuously pumped by 808 nm and 877 nm are comparatively investigated. Output power of 670 mW and 1587 mW, with nearly TEM00 mode, are achieved respectively at 808 nm pump and 877 nm pump. Meanwhile, a high-power passively Q-switched Nd:KGW/Cr4+:YAG laser pumped at 877 nm is demonstrated. An average output power of 1495 mW is obtained at pump power of 5.22 W while the laser is operating at repetition of 53.17 kHz. We demonstrate that 877 nm diode laser is a more potential pump source for Nd:KGW lasers.

A homogeneous cooling scheme investigation for high power slab laser

The forced convective heat transfer with the advantages of reliability and durability is widely used in cooling the laser gain medium. However, a flow direction induced temperature gradient always appears. In this paper, a novel cooling configuration based on longitudinal forced convective heat transfer is presented. In comparison with two different types of configurations, it shows a more efficient heat transfer and more homogeneous temperature distribution. The investigation of the flow rate reveals that the higher flow rate the better cooling performance. Furthermore, the simulation results with 20 L/min flow rate shows an adequate temperature level and temperature homogeneity which keeps a lower hydrostatic pressure in the flow path.

Uniform pump scheme for a LD face-pumped Nd:YAG slab amplifier

A new pump-shaping scheme for a LD face-pumped Nd:YAG slab laser amplifier is proposed, aiming to achieve uniform pump distributions. Plano-concave cylindrical mirror arrays are used to homogenize the pump distributions in the LD slow axes, and meanwhile optical-waveguide structures are used for the LD fast axes. Simulations based on ray tracing method indicate that the scheme effectively realizes uniform pump intensity distributions. The fluorescence distributions and small signal gains at different locations both verify the pump uniformity reaches higher than 90%.