1. Spatial hole burning in thin-disk lasers and twisted-mode operation
- Author
-
Gunther Wichmann, Klaus Kirch, Aldo Antognini, Randolf Pohl, Karsten Schuhmann, and F. Nez
- Subjects
Physics ,High power lasers ,business.industry ,Wavelength selectivity ,FOS: Physical sciences ,02 engineering and technology ,Polarizer ,Laser ,01 natural sciences ,Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics ,law.invention ,010309 optics ,020210 optoelectronics & photonics ,Optics ,Thin disk ,law ,0103 physical sciences ,0202 electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering ,Electrical and Electronic Engineering ,business ,Engineering (miscellaneous) ,Saturation (magnetic) ,Physics - Optics ,Optics (physics.optics) - Abstract
Spatial hole burning prevents single-frequency operation of thin-disk lasers when the thin disk is used as a folding mirror. We present an evaluation of the saturation effects in the disk for disks acting as end-mirrors and as folding-mirrors explaining one of the main obstacles towards single-frequency operation. It is shown that a twisted-mode scheme based on a multi-order quarter-wave plate combined with a polarizer provides an almost complete suppression of spatial hole burning and creates an additional wavelength selectivity that enforces efficient single-frequency operation., Comment: 14 pages, 16 figures
- Published
- 2018