Abstract

Yb:LuAG ceramic is very promising for thin-disk laser and amplifier architectures since it exhibits a higher thermal conductivity at high doping concentrations and a larger emission cross section than Yb:YAG. In this Letter, we present what we believe to be the first demonstration of a thin-disk laser based on Yb:LuAG ceramic. A maximum output power of 101 W with an optical efficiency of 56% and a slope efficiency of 64% was obtained with a multimode laser resonator. Fundamental-mode laser operation with near diffraction limited beam quality ($M^2\approx 1.22$) was also achieved. The fundamental-mode laser resonator showed the output power of 49 W, an optical efficiency of 31%, and a slope efficiency of 44%. A linearly polarized output beam was demonstrated in multimode operation using an intracavity Brewster window. The depolarization loss was measured to be as low as 0.15% per round trip.

© 2014 Optical Society of America

Yb³⁺-doped ceramic thin-disk lasers of Lu-based oxides

Hiroaki Nakao, Tatsuya Inagaki, Akira Shirakawa, Ken-ichi Ueda, Hideki Yagi, Takagimi Yanagitani, Alexander A. Kaminskii, Birgit Weichelt, Katrin Wentsch, Marwan Abdou Ahmed, and Thomas Graf
Opt. Mater. Express 4(10) 2116-2121 (2014)

CW and mode-locked operation of Yb³⁺-doped Lu₃Al₅O₁₂ ceramic laser

Hiroaki Nakao, Akira Shirakawa, Ken-ichi Ueda, Hideki Yagi, and Takagimi Yanagitani
Opt. Express 20(14) 15385-15391 (2012)

Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb³⁺-doped Lu₃Al₅O₁₂ ceramic laser

Shotaro Kitajima, Hiroaki Nakao, Akira Shirakawa, Hideki Yagi, and Takagimi Yanagitani
Opt. Lett. 41(19) 4570-4573 (2016)

First laser emission of Yb_0.15:(Lu_0.5Y_0.5)₃Al₅O₁₂ ceramics

Guido Toci, Angela Pirri, Jiang Li, Tengfei Xie, Yubai Pan, Vladimir Babin, Alena Beitlerova, Martin Nikl, and Matteo Vannini
Opt. Express 24(9) 9611-9616 (2016)

Ceramic Yb:Lu₂O₃ thin-disk laser oscillator delivering an average power exceeding 1 kW in continuous-wave operation

Stefan Esser, Christian Röhrer, Xiaodong Xu, Jun Wang, Jian Zhang, Thomas Graf, and Marwan Abdou Ahmed
Opt. Lett. 46(24) 6063-6066 (2021)