Abstract
An experimental study of a static helium gas gap heat switch concept for laser amplification is presented. High single pass gains with large co-sintered ceramic Yb:YAG disks are recorded in the 80-200K temperature range on a diode pumped active mirror amplifier.
Highlights
High average power and energy Diode-Pumped Solid-State Lasers (DPSSL) have been driving strong and continuous interest among the laser physicist community over the past decade
Whereas early stage work on DPSSL was confined on room temperature operated programs [1,2,3,4] with a still un-surpassed record average power set at 550W (55J/10Hz) with the Mercury project [2], a crucial shift took place in the recent years when almost all teams moved towards DPSSL chains relying on at least one low temperature (100 to 200K) operated amplifier [5,6,7,8,9,10]
The Laboratoire pour l’Utilisation des Lasers Intenses (LULI) has been engaged in the development of a DPSSL chain named Lucia where amplifying stages rely on Yb3+:YAG active mirrors cooled from the High Reflectivity (HR) coated back surface [7,14]
Summary
High average power and energy Diode-Pumped Solid-State Lasers (DPSSL) have been driving strong and continuous interest among the laser physicist community over the past decade. Within the Lucia project, a cooling approach based on a static helium gas gap acting as the heat transport medium between the hot YAG disk and a heatsink was proposed [26] This thermal management concept is known as a “heat switch” or “thermal switch” [27,28] which allows controlling the heat-conduction paths in the enclosed helium thin layer and the Yb:YAG medium temperature. Based on this architecture, we have built a prototype laser head minimizing the radial temperature gradient generating thermal lens or depolarization through birefringence. This paper describes this active mirror amplifier prototype based on this concept and its qualification in terms of thermal management and gain performances
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