title: Efficient corner-pumped Yb:YAG/YAG composite slab laser.
abstract: A high efficiency Yb:YAG/YAG composite slab laser is presented, in which the corner-pumped scheme is adopted. The slab is a composite crystal of Yb:YAG bonded thermally with undoped YAG at both edges. The pump light from diode arrays is coupled into the slab through four chamfers at the four corners independently. The pump absorption efficiency is studied, and an analysis method has been developed as a guide to optimize the geometric parameters of the composite slab, to obtain higher pump absorption efficiency and uniformity. The influence of the internal thermal lens on the laser resonator is analyzed. A 1016 W continuous-wave output has been obtained with the slope efficiency and optical-to-optical efficiency of 42.8% and 34.4%, respectively.
authors.affiliation: Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanology, Center of Photonics and Electronics, State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Mali
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.forename: Fuyuan
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Wupeng
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gong
authors.forename: Chen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li