Title :
Highly efficient and high-quality beam generation of a diode-stacks-pumped Nd:YAG rod laser
Author :
Fujikawa, S. ; Furuta, K. ; Yasui, K.
Author_Institution :
Adv. Technol. R&D Center, Mitsubishi Electr. Corp., Hyogo, Japan
Abstract :
Summary form only given. Because of long lifetime of diode bars, good quality of laser beams, and high efficiency of overall systems, high-power diode-pumped solid-state lasers could promise practical industrial tools for a variety of cutting, drilling and welding applications. Over the past several years, cost reduction and power scaling of diode bars accelerated the replacement conventional lamp pumped systems with diode-pumped solid-state lasers. Recent progress in diode-stack technology offers significant, power enhancement of diode-pumped solid-state lasers. However, both beam quality and electrical efficiency of high-power diode-pumped systems are several times lower than those of industrial CO/sub 2/ lasers resulting in specific applications. In this paper, we describe a highly efficient Nd:YAG rod laser with a novel-side-pumping design using microlens free diode-stacks. We also report high-brightness operation by introducing bifocusing compensation resonator.
Keywords :
brightness; laser cavity resonators; neodymium; optical focusing; optical pumping; solid lasers; Nd:YAG rod laser; YAG:Nd; YAl5O12:Nd; bifocusing compensation resonator; diode-stack-pumped laser; dual pump head scheme; high-brightness operation; high-quality beam generation; highly efficient generation; industrial laser; side-pumping design; transfer efficiency; Acceleration; Bars; Costs; Diodes; Drilling; Laser beam cutting; Laser beams; Pump lasers; Solid lasers; Welding;
Conference_Titel :
Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2001. CLEO '01. Technical Digest. Summaries of papers presented at the Conference on
Conference_Location :
Baltimore, MD, USA
Print_ISBN :
1-55752-662-1
DOI :
10.1109/CLEO.2001.947997
