Storage of Energy in Disk-Shaped Laser Materials

Abstract

Thin disk laser is analyzed, assuming that the heat is drained in the same direction, as the optical pulse, withdrawing the stored energy, comes. Amplified spontaneous emission, the background loss, and overheating are taken into account with simple model. The scaling laws of the basic parameters are deduced. For the case of fixed repetition rate, the upper bound of thickness is obtained. Key parameters are suggested. The key energy parameter is promoted as criterion for evaluation of different laser materials for the high energy, high mean power disk lasers. The maximum energy per active element is estimated. For the scaling up the power and/or energy withdrawn from a single active element, the background loss should scale down inversely proportional to the cube of the background loss. This scaling law gives the criterion whether the heat should be drained in the direction orthogonal to the beam that withdraws the energy.