Estimation of thermal lensing effect in the high-power end-pumped direct-cut crystal lasers

Abstract

At this working, analytical (with Gaussian pump beam profile) and numerical FEM (with super-Gaussian pump beam profile) methods were compared for estimation of thermal lensing effect in the diode-end-pumped solid-state laser rods. These results were applied to the design and realization of a direct-cut (i.e., cut in right-angle ) crystal Nd : YVO 4 laser. The results showed that for such crystal (direct-cut), two methods obtained almost the same results, but slightly different from experimental results. However, estimation of thermal lensing effect led to realization of a diode-end-pumped Nd : YVO 4 cw high-power laser with good optical quality.