Abstract

Increasingly many applications require a highaverage power laser source with high peak power and brightness for efficient frequency conversion to UV and other wavelengths. In practice end-pumped systems offer high brightness and high efficiency^1,2 but scaling to high average power is difficult, whereas side- pumped lasers offer greater power capability with less complexity than end-pumped designs, at the expense of efficient fundamentalmode extraction efficiency. We present a simple, side-pumped slab laser design using Nd:YLF for low thermal lensing and high energy storage, which has high TEM₀₀-mode extraction efficiency.

© 2000 Optical Society of America