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Multi-pass Yb:YAG ring lasers

The multi-pass ring cavity was constructed using only a pair of identical spherical mirrors, which is compact and can easily be aligned. The spatial hole burning effect and green problem can be eliminated in these ring cavities that can be applied to generate a single frequency laser. The characteristics of multi-pass non-planar and planar multi-pass ring cavities were analyzed, such as the reentrant conditions and cavity stability. The multi-pass ring lasers were successfully demonstrated by the reentrant condition simulations, the cavity length error between experimental result and simulation value were below 1.2%.
Yb3+:YAG was used as the gain medium in this dissertation, it has many advantages compared with that of Nd3+:YAG. Such as high doping concentration, low quantum defect, long upper state lifetime, broad emission bandwidth and its wide absorption band. However, the quasi-three-level nature of Yb3+:YAG makes temperature control crucial for laser performance.
A Ti:sapphire laser pumped Yb3+:YAG bulk crystal multi-pass continuous-wave ring laser was demonstrated with a slope efficiency of 50.3%, and a Yb3+:YAG crystal fiber ring laser was demonstrated with a slope efficiency of 54.7%. The thermal load in Yb3+:YAG was observed and compared with that of Nd3+:YAG. The passively Q-switched operation was obtained by a Cr4+:YAG saturable absorber. Due to the ring cavity configuration, the spontaneous noise from gain medium perturbs the population difference of the saturable absorber was reduced so that the timing jitter of the repetition period was restrained to around 11% while 33 ns pulses were obtained.
A compact diode-pumped continuous-wave ring cavity with 25.0% slope efficiency was presented. Two main challenges are noticed in the high power laser diode end pumped configuration, mode-matching difficulty and huge heat load. The mode-matching problem can be solved by an appropriate cavity design, the laser-heated pedestal growth (LHPG) method was used to growth Yb3+:YAG crystal fiber with small surface to improve the heat dissipation. The fiber crystal laser was successfully generated and compared with that of bulk crystal. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a Yb3+:YAG ring laser, and also the first demonstration of Yb3+:YAG crystal fiber ring laser.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0718106-213709
Date18 July 2006
CreatorsYi, Jui-Yun
ContributorsWen-Feng Hsieh, Yung-Fu Chen, Chao-Kuei Lee, Tao-Yuan Chang, Yen-Chieh Huang, Sheng-Lung Huang, Huy-Zu Cheng
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0718106-213709
Rightsunrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive

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