Erlangen 2018 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 13: Laser Development and Applications (joint session Q/A)
Q 13.1: Talk
Monday, March 5, 2018, 14:00–14:15, K 0.023
Pump-power scaling of a diode-pumped Alexandrite laser — •Martin Walochnik1, Hans Huber1, Bernd Jungbluth2, Alexander Munk2, Michael Strotkamp2, Dieter Hoffmann2, and Reinhart Poprawe1,2 — 1RWTH Aachen University Chair for Laser Technology LLT — 2Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology ILT
The possibility of diode pumping and the tunability between 700 nm and 800 nm make Alexandrite a remarkable laser gain medium. At present the scalability of the pump power and pump brilliance as well as the temporal stability of the laser output remain challenging. We report on our progress of using a red diode laser with spatially symmetrized output for end pumping of an Alexandrite laser rod. We measured the thermal dioptric power of the pumped laser crystal and experimentally identified the induced thermal aberrations as an important limit of the applicable pump power density. We designed a laser resonator with special emphasis on fundamental mode operation for high dioptric powers. We show results of a continuously pumped Alexandrite laser with wavelengths between 740 nm and 785 nm and fundamental mode operation up to 5 W. Future work will address further development of this laser in the field of mode locking and frequency conversion to generate ultrashort pulses and operate in the UV regime, respectively.