Abstract
Thermally induced optical adaptive lens in a solid-state laser can be used to compensate for the thermal lens and improve the beam quality. Herein, we present an active compensation method for thermal lensing in 1 µm diode-pumped solid-state Nd:YVO4 and Nd:YLF lasers. The compensation scheme comprised thermally inducing the defocusing effect of π polarization in Nd:YLF; the defocusing strength was controlled using a diode pump power. By varying the absorbed ∼790 nm diode power of Nd:YLF (0 to 7.8 W), the beam quality, M2, of Nd:YVO4 was manipulated from 2.4 to ∼1.1 and the power fluctuation was measured to be less than 0.5%.
Funder
Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan