In this work, we have compared the Q-switched performance of single rod crystal to a newly developed distributed face cooling structure. This structure was made by surface activated bonding technology and allowed to combine transparent heatsink to a gain crystal at room temperature. The Sapphire and Nd³⁺:YAG crystal plates were combined in this fashion to produce eight crystal chip which was further used to obtain Q-switch pulses with Cr⁴⁺:YAG crystal as saturable absorber. Energy of 9 mJ and pulse duration of 815 ps were achieved. Although the energy obtained with single rod system was 10 mJ, the degradation of the beam prevents such crystal to be used in further applications. This is the first demonstration of distributed face cooling system outperformed conventionally single rod system.

Date Published: 17 February 2017
PDF: 4 pages
Proc. SPIE 10082, Solid State Lasers XXVI: Technology and Devices, 100820Z (17 February 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2251916

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10082:
Solid State Lasers XXVI: Technology and Devices
W. Andrew Clarkson; Ramesh K. Shori, Editor(s)