The standard Findlay Clay Analysis cannot be applied to diode side-pumped Nd:YAG lasers because both the pump wavelength as well as the gain change with the diode current and the cooling water temperature. We have developed a modified method which is based on the variation of the cooling water temperature to determine the lowest threshold for each output coupler. We have applied this technique to a 300 Watt class side Nd:YAG rod laser. The resulting Findlay Clay plot exhibits very good linearity and the measured gain and loss were confirmed by comparing measured output power at different cooling water temperatures with theoretical values provided by a Rigrod power model.

Date Published: 4 March 2014
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 8960, Laser Resonators, Microresonators, and Beam Control XVI, 89601Y (4 March 2014); doi: 10.1117/12.2041608

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8960:
Laser Resonators, Microresonators, and Beam Control XVI
Alexis V. Kudryashov; Alan H. Paxton; Vladimir S. Ilchenko; Lutz Aschke; Kunihiko Washio, Editor(s)