Abstract
An alternative multirod solar laser end-side-pumping concept, based on the megawatt solar furnace in France, is proposed to significantly improve the TEM00-mode solar laser output power level and its beam brightness through a novel zigzag beam merging technique. A solar flux homogenizer was used to deliver nearly the same pump power to multiple core-doped Nd:YAG laser rods within a water-cooled pump cavity through a fused silica window. Compared to the previous multibeam solar laser station concepts for the same solar furnace, the present approach can allow the production of high-power TEM00-mode solar laser beams with high beam brightness. An average of 1.06 W TEM00-mode laser power was numerically extracted from each of 1657 rods, resulting in a total of 1.8 kW. More importantly, by mounting 399 rods at a 30° angle of inclination and employing the beam merging technique, a maximum of 5.2 kW total TEM00-mode laser power was numerically extracted from 37 laser beams, averaging 141 W from each merged beam. The highest solar laser beam brightness figure of merit achieved was 148 W, corresponding to an improvement of 23 times in relation to the previous experimental record.
Highlights
The production of coherent and narrowband laser radiation from broadband solar radiation has gained an ever-increasing importance over the years, providing cost-effective solutions to laser radiation in a more sustainable way
To extract a single laser beam from an array of core-doped rods, the resonant cavity was composed of a highly reflective (HR) 1064 nm mirror, a certain number of rods (N), the fused silica window with a HR 1064 nm coating on its lower face, a set of horizontal HR 1064 nm folding mirrors, and a partially reflective (PR) 1064 nm output mirror
Total multimode laser power of beams, corresponding an improvement of three times in relation to the kWwas attained before beam merging
Summary
The production of coherent and narrowband laser radiation from broadband solar radiation has gained an ever-increasing importance over the years, providing cost-effective solutions to laser radiation in a more sustainable way. W/m rod, attained, which occurs stress originated from the temperature gradients in the laser exposure of a single rod to a large amount of pump power can induce excessive heat within material surpasses its tensile length [18] Overcoming this hindrance is o it and, substantial thermal stress effects [17]. The reduction of the rod diameter makes it more thermally resistant and can when the stress originated from the temperature gradients in the laser material surpassesimprove considerably the beam quality, even though the laser ispower production could be its tensile length [18] Overcoming this hindrance of paramount importance severely limited. The Nd:YAG laser is a four-level system, as depicted abywavelength ofenergy
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