Neodymium:YAG laser resonator chip design, optical characterization and validation.

摘要

Nd:YAG lasers are the most common solid state lasers and are found in many different optical configurations. Effective use of these lasers in remote, in-situ sensing and other applications requires compact size and efficient operation. This project targets the simplification and reduction of the size of these lasers by shaping the active media into a retro-reflecting slab and pumping it with an AlGaAs diode laser at 808nm. The Nd:YAG slab laser was reduced to a rectangular chip component of dimensions 10 x 12 x 2mm. The laser was constructed, tested and shown to successfully lase at 1064nm. The slab laser was operated in a pulsed pump excitation mode and shown to support the TEM10 single output mode. Using a commercial cavity resonator-modeling tool (Laser train) the design geometry of the resonator was validated. The experimental set up for the slab and optical output characterization was designed and constructed and the lasing efficiency in pulsed pump excitation mode was determined.