Abstract
Results are presented showing that high laser output efficiencies and a significant reduction in thermal effects can be achieved by a spinning of an optically pumped disk of gain material in a laser cavity. Waste heat is removed from the disk by conduction to cold plates across a thin gas layer. With this approach, a diode-pumped Nd:YAG laser has been demonstrated at cw output power, mode, with a slope efficiency of 59%. A Nd:glass spinning-disk laser has also been demonstrated at cw, multimode, with a slope efficiency of 40%. As the disk revolution rate was scanned from , the laser power first increased to a maximum value then decreased for increasingly higher rates. However, when the laser resonator axis was advanced with respect to the pump, the optimum spin rate shifted to higher values.
© 2005 Optical Society of America
Full Article | PDF ArticleMore Like This
Andrew P. Ongstad, Matthew Guy, and Joeseph R. Chavez
Opt. Express 24(1) 108-113 (2016)
Ai-Yun Yao, Wei Hou, Yu-Peng Kong, Lin Guo, Ling-An Wu, Rui-Ning Li, Da-Fu Cui, Zu-Yan Xu, Yong Bi, and Yi Zhou
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 22(10) 2129-2133 (2005)
J. Korn, T. H. Jeys, and T. Y. Fan
Opt. Lett. 16(22) 1741-1743 (1991)