Abstract
Using cryogenic laser technology, it is now possible to design and demonstrate lasers that have concomitant high average and peak powers, with near-diffraction-limited beam quality. We refer to these new laser systems as HAPP lasers. In this paper, we review important laser crystal materials properties at cryogenic temperature, with an emphasis on Yb lasers, and discuss the important design considerations, including the laser-induced damage threshold, nonlinear effects and thermal effects. A comprehensive model is presented to describe diode pulsed pumping with arbitrary duration and repetition rate, and is used with the Frantz–Nodvik equation to describe, to first order, the performance of HAPP laser systems. A computer code with representative results is also described.
Highlights
Cryogenic solid-state lasers have come to the fore recently, in large part because cryogenic laser technology has been shown to be capable of providing concomitant high average and peak powers with very good beam quality and without the need for any beam-correction optics or nonlinear beamcorrection schemes
CaF2 on the other hand may be very useful as a low-average-power mode-locked laser material (Yb:CaF2), but is unlikely to be used for amplifiers in HAPP cryogenic laser systems
We have developed a very useful pulsed-pumping model that enables modeling of picosecond and nanosecond cryogenic laser systems that are used for pumping ultrafast lasers, whether broadband Ti:Al2O3 or other tunable broadbandwidth systems or broadband optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) systems
Summary
Cryogenic solid-state lasers have come to the fore recently, in large part because cryogenic laser technology has been shown to be capable of providing concomitant high average and peak powers with very good beam quality and without the need for any beam-correction optics or nonlinear beamcorrection schemes. We discuss cryogenic nanosecond and picosecond lasers, the former having the potential to substantially increase the performance of traditional Ti:Al2O3 lasers, and the latter to provide powerful pump sources for optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) systems. Large laser-induced damage thresholds (LIDTs) are the norm, and one can build powerful pump sources using direct amplification only.
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