Influence of operating temperature on the power, divergence, and stress-induced birefringence in solar-pumped solid state lasers

The relative performance of solar-pumped Nd:YAG and Nd:Cr:GSGG lasers was evaluated at both 300 and 80 K. Measurements of the slope efficiency and the lasing threshold were made on several lasers containing these crystals. The stress-induced birefringence and the divergence were also studied. The measurements were used to calculate the values of the intrinsic efficiencies and the losses at both temperatures. The possible mechanisms for the observed temperature dependence are discussed. Due to the improved thermal conductivity of the laser crystals at low temperature, all lasers showed significantly improved performance at low temperature. Both the slope efficiencies and the thresholds improved by a factor of 2 to 3 on cooling. The absolute value of the beam quality, and its sensitivity to changes in the resonator configuration or pump power were significantly better at low temperature.

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