1. Influence of aberrations on fundamental mode of high power rod solid-state lasers
- Author
-
Jérôme Bourderionnet, Robert Frey, Jean-Pierre Huignard, and Arnaud Brignon
- Subjects
Materials science ,business.industry ,Astrophysics::Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics ,Physics::Optics ,Astigmatism ,Laser ,medicine.disease ,Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics ,Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials ,law.invention ,Power (physics) ,Spherical aberration ,Aberrations of the eye ,Optics ,Amplitude ,law ,medicine ,Laser beam quality ,Electrical and Electronic Engineering ,Physical and Theoretical Chemistry ,business ,Saturation (magnetic) - Abstract
We investigate the influence of thermally induced higher order aberrations on the fundamental mode of a rod solid-state laser. The perturbations of the laser due to the most common aberrations (spherical aberration and astigmatism) are studied for several sizes of the fundamental mode. Results concerning the additional losses and beam quality degradation induced by these aberrations are also presented and demonstrate that for a large overlapping of the beam size and the laser rod, the spherical aberration amplitude must not exceed 0.5λ for the cavity to oscillate. The influence of gain saturation also analyzed in the model is shown to be of less importance.
- Published
- 2002