Abstract In this dissertation a rigorous analysis is performed on the reentrant non-planar ring laser cavity constructed by the Herriott-type multi-pass cell. Since the non-planar ring cavity is a non-orthogonal cavity, so the ABCD matrix method used to analyze the beam propagation is not valid. A rigorous method using Gaussian beam propagation is needed. The beam rotation, astigmatism, and spherical aberration are considered to obtain a self-consistent solution of the Gaussian beam. It turns out that spherical aberration is a very important issue for this non-planar resonator. Without taking into account the spherical aberration, a stable resonator would be difficult to realize. By using a self-consistent Gaussian beam propagation method, the characteristic of laser beam was analyzed and compared with that of the ABCD approximation method. The reentrant ring cavity is very sensitive to cavity length, especially when the planar and non-planar configurations have the same output beams; therefore, it is very important to consider a rigorous method using Gaussian beam propagation. By considering the coordinate transformation of the beam after mirror reflection, a non-planar figure-8 ring cavity can be treated as an orthogonal cavity except for an exchange of tangential and Sagittal planes after each reflection. A simple astigmatic Gaussian beam approach is used to analyze the non-planar figure-8 ring cavity, and an analytic solution is obtained. For the general case of the multi-pass non-planar ring cavity, a general astigmatic Gaussian beam approach is used to treat the problem. The general form of mirror phase shift is used, and two important differences compared to the ABCD method were found. Firstly, the spot size is always elliptical while the spot size is circular using the ABCD approximation. Secondly, a second stable region is found in the cavity, the width of the second stable region is smaller than the first stable regi

Diode laser pumped solid state laser is compact, and can generate high peak power laser with good output mode. It has been applied extensively in electronics, communication, and medical treatment in recent years. The purpose of this study is to develop a compact and practical ring laser system. The multi-reentrant ring laser system developed in this work composes of two spherical mirrors and a gain medium where the conventional ring laser systems have at least three mirrors to construct the laser cavity. The laser system is more compact and simple than conventional ring laser systems. It can be used for producing single frequency green and blue lasers. The laser system can also be applied in aviation, trace detection as well as compact picosecond mode-locked laser. We not only prove that the multi-reentrant laser system is feasible theoretically and experimentally, but also use the fundamental laser theory to find the relation among cavity length, number of points, number of circulation, and the distance between center of gain medium and optical axis. The exact solution we obtained is experimentally verified with good agreement. A comparison between exact solution and paraxial approximation is also performed. The beam paths observing from the top, side, and end view are analyzed for various multi-reentrant laser cavities. The stability of the cavity is numerically analyzed and experimentally verified with good agreement, too. Finally, the differences in cavity configuration between TEM01 mode and the figure-8 mode are compared in this thesis.

In the past three decades, Nd:YAG has been the dominating high power solid-state laser gain medium. Compared with Nd:YAG, Yb:YAG has lower quantum defects which produces less heat so that it can reduce thermo-optical deformation. In addition, the achieved doping concentration can be 100%, and the absorption FWHM at 941 nm is 18 nm. Based on above listed advantages, Yb:YAG has the potential to replace Nd:YAG. Using Yb:YAG as the laser gain medium in reentrant two-mirror laser cavity, we have succeeded in Yb:YAG ring laser and all the intracavity elements are coated by our electron gun deposition system. The main purpose of my research is to continue the previous result (slope efficiency: 20.1%), and further increasing the slope efficiency of our ring cavity with different round-trip transmittance of couplers. Besides, we measured and analyzed the polarization of the planar and non-planar ring cavities. At present, the highest slope efficiency we achieved is 38.9% with a round-trip transmittance of 16.4%.