title: Preferential operation of an end-pumped Nd:YAG laser in high-order Laguerre-Gauss modes.
abstract: A small Nd:YAG laser with plano-concave resonator end pumped by a dye laser is observed to possess single Laguerre-Gauss transverse modes as the lowest-loss modes. This anomalous behavior occurs when the transverse dimension of the gain spot is much smaller than the fundamental TEM(00)-mode spot size of the resonator; the Laguerre-Gauss transverse-mode order varies with resonator length.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A7, Canada.
authors.forename: C J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Flood
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Giuliani
authors.forename: H M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: van Driel