Thermal effects in Nd: YVO4 and Nd: GdVO4 block crystals under diode end-pumped at 914 nm

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, we report a numerical study of the thermal effects within both a-cut crystals Nd: YVO4 (1.5 at.%) and Nd: GdVO4 (1.5 at.%) end-pumped by a diode laser emitting at 914 nm. The temperature, stresses distributions and thermal lensing parameters were calculated by finite element method using LASCAD© software. The obtained results show that the Nd:GdVO4 is the best candidate for high power diode laser end-pumped solid-state lasers because of its lower thermal effects.