In the recent years, bonded components have seen a rise in popularity in solid state laser gain media as a way to mitigate thermal issues which are detrimental to their performances and limit power scaling. The bonding technique is currently selected based on a trade-off between cost and performance. Hydroxide catalysed bonding is a rather young technique coming from the field of gravitational research which has not really made an impact in photonics applications. Yet it is believed that thanks

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... to its low cost and overall good performance, there is a non-negligible share of applications for which it could prove as the most advantageous process. In this work phosphate glass and YAG are selected as materials of interest due to their common use as host matrices for solid-state lasers gain media. Both these materials have a different chemistry from the materials of interest in previous studies on hydroxide catalysed bonding and the bonding mechanisms are to a large extent unknown. Therefore the work has to be carried out from first principles. The highlighted properties to study are the reflectivity and the Light Induced Damage Threshold (LIDT) of the bond which are both of interest when the interface has to be crossed by a laser beam. The mechanical strength is added as a way to check the robustness of the component, to obtain an insight into the curing kinetics and to address concerns associated with manufacturability. Results on how the parameters of the solution used affect both the optical and mechanical properties of the bonded component, and which solution is the most suitable for photonics applications, are presented. The beginning of this work largely draws on a presentation of the science case and a review of the relevant literature, from the description of the heat generation phenomenon in laser operation, to designs and techniques that allows mitigation of this heating. Initial trials were carried out on phosphate glass. The parameters for the aqueous solution used in hydroxide catalysed bonding are not s [...]