Active mirror: a large-aperture medium-repetition rate Nd:glass amplifier

Abate, Joseph A.; Lund, L. D.; Brown, David C.; Jacobs, Stephen D.; Refermat, Stanley; Kelly, John; Gavin, M.; Waldbillig, J.; Lewis, O. Griffin

doi:10.1364/ao.20.000351

Cited by 43 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The role of impedance matching provides another perspective on the distinction between the amplifying beamsplitter and previously described optical amplifiers. The active mirror, for instance, is inherently a multipass transmission device [4] that relies on an impedance mismatch to produce reflection. Likewise, amplifier designs based on total internal reflection, from fiber lasers [5] to whispering-gallery-mode microsphere lasers [17], require an impedance mismatch in the form of an index discrepancy to produce reflection.…”

Section: Slabmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This situation stands in marked contrast to other types of optical amplifiers, even those where reflection plays a conspicuous role in enhancing the gain. For instance, in disk lasers, also known as active mirrors, the gain can be attributed to one medium and the reflection to another [4]. Likewise in fibers with active cladding the gain is most easily viewed as occurring as the evanescent wave propagates in the gain medium [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Impedance matching of inverted conductors: Two-dimensional beam splitters with divergent gain

Mecklenburg¹,

Regan²

2015

Phys. Rev. A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A thin conducting sheet -graphene, for example -transmits, absorbs, and reflects radiation. A sheet that is very thin, even vanishingly so, can still produce 50% absorption at normal incidence if it has conductivity corresponding to half the impedance of free space. We find that, regardless of the sheet conductivity, there exists a combination of polarization and angle of incidence that achieves this impedance half-matching condition. If the conducting medium can be inverted, the conductivity is formally negative and the sheet amplifies the incident radiation. To the extent that a negative half-match in a thin sheet can be maintained, enormous single-pass gain in both transmission and reflection is possible. Known semiconductors (e.g., gallium nitride) have the optical properties necessary to give large amplification in a structure that is, remarkably, both thin and nonresonant.

show abstract

Section: Slabmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impedance matching of inverted conductors: Two-dimensional beam splitters with divergent gain

Mecklenburg¹,

Regan²

2015

Phys. Rev. A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In a reflective disk, also known as active mirror amplifier (AMA), the back surface of the disk is available for liquid cooling, which is more efficient than gas cooling and well suited for continuous operation at HAP. A variety of lamp-pumped AMA concepts has been investigated since the late 1960s (see e.g., [4][5][6][7]), but the true potential of AMA was unlocked with the introduction of diode pumping. Recognizing this potential, Boeing conducted the first test of the diode-pumped Nd:GGG disk AMA in 1992 [8].…”

Section: Disk-type Solid-state Lasersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Consider a CAMIL disk of diameter d. To obtain the highest (instantaneous) laser power, the disk is pumped to its ASE "limit," i.e., a point beyond which ASE losses are not acceptable. This condition defines the maximum (i.e., ASE-limited) small-signal gain go,AsE in accordance with the ASE criterion go,AsE d ASE 4 (4) where the ASE parameter depends on gain medium geometry and mode of operation. For example, 4 = 2.5 is often taken as a limit for storage mode operation [17, 1 8].…”

Section: Elementary Scaling Theory For Quasi-3 Level Gain Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Compact active mirror laser (CAMIL)

Vetrovec

2002

Solid State Lasers XI

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This work presents concept and scaling considerations for a solid-state laser with a gain medium disk operating in the active mirror mode. The disk is of composite construction formed by bonding undoped optical medium to the peripheral edges of a gain medium disk. Pump diode anays are placed around the perimeter of the composite disk and pump light is injected into the undoped edge. With proper choice of lasant doping, diode placement and diode divergence, a uniform laser gain can be achieved across large portions of the disk. To mitigate thermal deformations, the gain medium disk is pressure-clamped to a rigid, cooled substrate. Effective reduction of thermo-optical distortions makes this laser suitable for operation at high-average power.Keywords: solid-state lasers, disk laser, active mirror, ytterbium, beam quality DISK-TYPE SOLID-STATE LASERSSolid-state lasers (SSL) scalable to high-average power (HAP) are highly desirable for many government and commercial applications. The key challenges to developing HAP SSL are thermomechanical effects, which occur in the gain medium as a result of pumping. Even with pumping by the efficient semiconductor laser diodes, significant portion of the pump energy is dissipated into heat, which is deposited into the SSL medium. This causes thermal lensing, mechanical stresses, and other effects, with likely consequences of degraded beam quality (BQ), reduced laser power, and possibly a fracture of the SSL medium. Beam quality is particularly affected by temperature gradients perpendicular to laser beam axis. Popular SSL configurations, such as rods or slabs, are particularly susceptible to such thermal effects. Despite ingenious designs that recently appeared, attempts to further increase average power output from rod and slab lasers drive the design toward regimes of increased complexity, reduced electric efficiency, and worsening BQ.Disk-type SSLs enjoy inherently low susceptibility to thermo-optical distortions and have demonstrated lasing at HAP with outstanding beam quality [1 -3]. Their large, round aperture reduces diffraction and beam clipping losses experienced by other SSL canfigurations. In a disk laser, transverse temperature gradients are reduced because waste heat is extracted from the gain medium in the direction parallel to laser beam axis. A disk laser may use transmissive disks shown in Figure la or reflective disks shown in Figure lb. In a transmissive disk, waste heat is removed by gas flowing through the optical path. In a reflective disk, also known as active mirror amplifier (AMA), the back surface of the disk is available for liquid cooling, which is more efficient than gas cooling and well suited for continuous operation at HAP.

show abstract

“…This approach is now the pump architecture of choice for large high power pulsed fusion lasers. 37 The use of matrixed crystal discs will require precision optical fabrication of the individual crystal components. It may well be necessary to encapsulate them in a transparent optical frame to ensure stability.…”

Section: Cr:lisaf Disk Amplifiermentioning

confidence: 99%

<title>10-TW femtosecond laser plasma facility</title>

Richardson

Grantham

Gaebel

et al. 1995

Solid State Lasers for Application to Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The availability of ultrashort (100 fs) high intensity lasers capable of producing focused intensities in excess of 1018 W/cm2 provides many new opportunities in studying the interaction of radiation with matter. We describe a new laser plasma facility constructed around a Cr:LiSAF laser system currently capable of output energies of '-lJ in times of '-100 fs. This facility will be directed initially towards basic studies of the interaction of intense ultrashort laser pulses with dense plasmas, and the generation and application of intense hard x-ray point sources.The laser system we have developed for this facility,' uses the new solid-state laser material, Cr:LiSAF. This material has many advantages for the generation of intense ultrashort laser pulses. The spectral gain bandwidth is sufficiently broad for the amplification of pulses shorter than 100 fs in duration. Its florescence lifetime is long enough to permit the use of conventional flashlamp pumping, and its emission cross-section is such that it provides a small signal gains high enough to allow its use in a high powered chirped pulsed amplification laser architectures. The material can now be fabricated into laser rods up to 25 mm in diameter with low scattering losses its and Cr concentrations can be varied to optimize the small signal gain for specific pump cavities. These factors taken together allow the design of a 100 fs high intensity oscillator-laser system that is simpler in architecture than those based on Ti:sapphire or KrF. Moreover the use of Cr:LiSAF laser crystal elements should enable the generation of much higher powers. In principle as high as 1 PW should be achievable with a laboratory with this approach.2 Modifications currently being implemented onto our Cr:LiSAF laser system include improvements to pulse contrast, energy extraction, beam uniformity and focusability. The system will soon be incorporated with a 52-port precision target chamber that will be equipped with a broad array of x-ray and plasma diagnostics. Several research programs are being designed around this facility. Two of these programs, those relating to the use of hard x-rays for the analysis of shock phenomena in solids and the general physics of extremely high magnetic fields will be presented.

show abstract

Active mirror: a large-aperture medium-repetition rate Nd:glass amplifier

Abstract: Progress in the development of Nd:glass active mirror laser amplifiers is presented. Included is a detailed discussion of hardware design as well as gain and repetition rate performance. Finally, multiunit test results, in a higher power and high energy beam, are presented.

Cited by 43 publications

References 2 publications

Impedance matching of inverted conductors: Two-dimensional beam splitters with divergent gain

Impedance matching of inverted conductors: Two-dimensional beam splitters with divergent gain

Compact active mirror laser (CAMIL)

<title>10-TW femtosecond laser plasma facility</title>

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About