Control of the bipolarization emission of an Yb:YAG laser by the orientation of the pump polarization

Abstract

We show that the polarized pumping can be used to control the relative powers of two linear, orthogonally polarized, eigenstates in a Yb:YAG laser. The experimental observations are in full agreement with a two-mode rate-equation model, highlighting the roles of both the gain anisotropy and the cross-saturation parameters, whose values are found to be ε = 0.08 and β = 0.64, respectively, in a longitudinally pumped continuous-wave microchip laser. The application to dual-polarization frequency combs is discussed.