Experimental and numerical analysis of thermal aberrations in Nd:YVO₄ laser amplifiers

authored by

Merle Schneewind, Phillip Booker, Stefan Spiekermann, Peter Weßels, Jörg Neumann, Dietmar Kracht

Abstract

Nd:YVO₄ is an excellent gain material for laser amplifiers used in gravitational wave detectors [1] because of several reasons. Nd:YVO₄'s anisotropic emission cross-sections and inherent birefringence enable stable output polarization and suppress thermally induced depolarization. Furthermore, Nd:YVO₄ saturates at low seed intensity. However, vanadate's low thermal conductivity poses a major challenge for the application of Nd:YVO₄ laser crystals, because the beam quality degrades at higher power levels as a result of thermal wavefront distortions [2,3]. In this work, we analyse the aberrations of the thermal lens in Nd:YVO₄ amplifiers in order to design suitable counter-measures and increase the achievable single-mode output power.

Organisation(s)

QuantumFrontiers

External Organisation(s)

Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH)

Type

Conference contribution

No. of pages

1

Publication date

2023

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials, Instrumentation, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1109/CLEO/EUROPE-EQEC57999.2023.10232647 (Access: Closed)