Thin-disk laser pump schemes for large number of passes and moderate pump source quality

TL;DR

This paper introduces novel thin-disk laser pump configurations that increase the number of passes without significantly enlarging the system or demanding higher pump source quality, enabling more efficient use of low-absorption materials.

Contribution

The paper presents a general scheme for merging simple pump optics to achieve more passes, adaptable with standard components, reducing size and quality demands for industrial laser applications.

Findings

Increased number of passes improves efficiency.

New layouts can be realized with standard pump optics and an additional mirror-pair.

The scheme minimizes size and quality scaling issues in multi-pass designs.

Abstract

Novel thin-disk laser pump layouts are proposed yielding an increased number of passes for a given pump module size and pump source quality. These novel layouts result from a general scheme which bases on merging two simpler pump optics arrangements. Some peculiar examples can be realized by adapting standard commercially available pump optics simply by intro ducing an additional mirror-pair. More pump passes yield better efficiency, opening the way for usage of active materials with low absorption. In a standard multi-pass pump design, scaling of the number of beam passes brings ab out an increase of the overall size of the optical arrangement or an increase of the pump source quality requirements. Such increases are minimized in our scheme, making them eligible for industrial applications