BIREFRINGENCE COMPENSATION AND TEM00 MODE ENHANCEMENT IN A Nd: YAG LASER

Abstract

A Nd: YAG laser has been operated under strong thermal focusing and birefringent conditions and has yielded both linearly polarized output with negligible power loss and TEM00 output of 50–70% of the multimode power. The laser consisted of two Nd: YAG rods separated by a 90° crystal quartz polarization rotator together with a convex mirror and used no special cooling techniques. The performance of this laser, which agreed with theoretical predictions, indicates that this design approach may be generally applicable to the problem of thermally induced aberrations in such systems.