Saturated Absorption Effects in CW-Pumped Solid-State Lasers

Abstract

Saturation effects in solid-state laser materials are important to accurately model and optimize the performance of laser devices. In this paper, we present analytical and numerical results describing the absorption in continuous wave solid-state lasers with both pump and laser saturation included, for flat-topped and Gaussian spatial distributions. Generalized absorption results are presented as a function of the ratio of pump intensity to pump saturation intensity, laser intensity to laser saturation intensity, optical thickness, and different ratios of laser to pump waists for collimated beams. These results apply to most solid-state laser energy level systems.