<title>Beam quality of solar-pumped lasers</title>

Abstract

Solar light is considered as an efficient source for direct optical excitation of solid state lasers. The high efficiency is achieved through the use of different solar spectral bands to pump simultaneously several lasers. In this way it is possible to convert solar energy into laser light at an efficiency of approximately 30% (this value is calculated relative to the solar spectrum inside the atmosphere, after the short UV and far IR are filtered out). Since solar radiation on the ground is unstable, the thermal lensing and other beam quality parameters are not constant and cannot be compensated by standard methods. In the past, most efforts in the development of solar pumped lasers were devoted to the achievement of maximum power and high efficiency while the beam quality was neglected. However, beam quality is important for power transmission, satellite communication, frequency doubling and other applications of solar pumped lasers. A new approach to improve the beam quality of solar pumped solid state lasers using a phase conjugate mirror will be discussed.© (1999) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.