Abstract

If the pump radiation is strongly absorbed in the laser material, end-pumping of solid-state lasers can lead to high efficiency as a result of the good mode overlap between the solid-state laser and the diode-laser pump. Weak absorption of the diode-laser radiation can result from the use of a very short solid-state laser cavity for single-mode operation,¹ inherently weak absorption² in the laser material at the wavelengths of available pump lasers, or low laser ion concentration in the host material. Weak absorption in quasi-three-level lasers can also result if short laser crystals or low-concentration material are used to reduce the reabsorption loss.^3,4 Some method of increasing the total absorption of pump light is desired to increase the overall efficiency of laser systems with weak single-pass absorption.

© 1991 Optical Society of America