DISK LASERS

ANKIT KUMAR PANDEY

NIT DELHI

WHAT ARE DISK-LASERS?

Also called active mirrors[1].

It is a type of diode pumped solid-state laser.

Despite their name, disk lasers do not have to be circular.

The thickness of the disk is considerably smaller than the

laser beam diameter.

The main difference from conventional rod lasers is the

geometry of the gain medium : the laser crystal is a thin

disk, where the thickness is considerably smaller than

the laser beam diameter.

Also known as optically pumped semiconductor vertical external cavity

surface emitting laser.

THE DISK LASER TECHNOLOGY

ADVANTAGES:

Reduced Thermal Issues at High Output Powers

Power Scalability.[3]

Energy efficiency of > 30 %

Power levels from 1 to 16 kW.

DISADVANTAGES:

Spatial hole burning-a distortion of the gain shape

in a laser medium.

APPLICATIONS:

Generation of ultra-short pulses at very high power

levels.

Can also be used for regenerative amplifiers.

Pump sources for optical parametric

oscillators, amplifiers and generators.

Used for medical treatment as well as for micro or

macro machining in the industry.

REFERENCES:

[1]J. A. Abate et al., “Active Mirror: a large-aperture

medium repetition rate Nd:glass amplifier”, Appl. Opt.

20 (2), 351 (1981).

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_laser

[3] A. Giesen et al., “Scalable concept for diode-pumped

high-power solid-state lasers”, Appl. Phys. B 58, 363

(1994)

[4] http://www.rp-photonics.com/thin_disk_lasers.html