TEM00 mode Nd:YAG solar laser by side-pumping a grooved rod

Cláudia R. Vistas (1) , Dawei Liang (1) , Joana Almeida (1) , Emmanuel Guillot (2)

1 CEFITEC - Centro de Física e Investigação Tecnológica [Lisboa]
2 PROMES - Procédés, Matériaux et Energie Solaire

A simple TEM00 mode solar laser system with a grooved Nd:YAG rod pumped through a heliostat-parabolic mirror system is reported here. The radiation coupling capacity of a fused silica tube lens was combined with the multipass pumping ability of a 2 V-shaped cavity to provide efficient side-pumping along a 4.0 mm diameter grooved Nd:YAG single-crystal rod. TEM00 mode solar laser power of 3.4 W was measured by adopting an asymmetric large-mode laser resonant cavity. Record TEM00 mode solar laser collection efficiency of 3.4 W/m2and slope efficiency of 1.9% was achieved, which corresponds to 1.8 and 2.4 times more than the previous TEM00 mode Nd:YAG solar laser using the PROMES-CNRS heliostat-parabolic mirror system, respectively.

Keywords: Solar-pumped laser; Single-mode laser; Resonator; Parabolic mirror; Solar heliostat; Neodymium

Domains: Engineering Sciences [physics]; Optics / Photonic

Cláudia R. Vistas, Dawei Liang, Joana Almeida, Emmanuel Guillot. TEM00 mode Nd:YAG solar laser by side-pumping a grooved rod. Optics Communications, 2016, 366, pp.50-56. ⟨10.1016/j.optcom.2015.12.038⟩. ⟨hal-01482667⟩