2016/03/01 by K. Schuhmann, K. Kirch, Schuhmann, K. +5
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Fiber Laser Technologies #Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications #Solid State Laser Technologies #physics.optics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1603.00404
11 pages, 8 figures
arxiv created 2016/05/02 · arxiv updated 2016/05/03
A novel optical layout for a multi-pass resonator is presented paving the way for pulse energy scaling of mode-locked thin-disk lasers. The multi-pass resonator we are proposing consists of a concatenation of nearly identical optical segments. Each segment corresponds to a round-trip in an optically stable cavity containing an active medium exhibiting soft aperture effects. This scheme is apt for energy and power scaling because the stability region of this multi-pass resonator contrarily to the 4f-based schemes does not shrink with the number of passes. Simulation of the eigen-mode of this multi-segment resonator requires considering aperture effects. This has been achieved by implementing effective Gaussian apertures into the ABCD-matrix formalism as lenses with imaginary focal length. We conclude proposing a simple way to double the stability region of the state-of-the-art layouts used in industry achievable by a minimal rearrangement of the used optical components.