Compact pulsed diode-pumped solid-state lasers [thesis]

Bernd Braun, Günter Huber, Ursula Keller
1996
In recent years there has been an increasing interest in an all solid-state laser technology. Compact, diode-pumped solid-state lasers have the potential to deliver a high output power in connection with a diffraction limited output beam. If the laser is operated in the pulsed mode rather than the continuous wave mode, one can profit from the time resolution and from the concentration of the energy within a short time window. This thesis treats special aspects of compact passively modelocked
more » ... passively Q-switched solid-state lasers. The pulse generation is done in all cases with an antiresonant Fabry-Perot saturable absorber (A-FPSA). The A-FPSA consists of a semiconductor saturable absorber between two mirrors, where the thickness of the absorber is adjusted to the antiresonance condition of the Fabry-Perot. The basic design guidelines, together with the different characterization methods, are summarized, and the stability criteria to either Q-switch or modelock a solid-state laser are given. Small-scale diode-pumped solid-state lasers are usually end-pumped, thus showing strong effects due to spatial hole-burning. The effects due to enhanced spatial holeburning (SHB) are investigated both experimentally and theoretically. It is shown that SHB broadens the cw lasing spectrum and that the mode spacing between lasing modes is determined by the free spectral range of the crystal. If the laser is modelocked, spatial
doi:10.3929/ethz-a-001761222 fatcat:px3fpyldcrdnnjy256lmncncd4