[IEEE 2019 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC) - Munich, Germany (2019.6.23-2019.6.27)] 2019 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC) - Population Lensing in Alexandrite Lasers

摘要： Alexandrite (Cr3+:BeAl2O4) is a vibronic laser at 701-858 nm. Its excellent thermo-mechanical properties and high energy storage make it an ideal high power and high energy Q-switched source with recent development in mJ-level red-diode-pumped Alexandrite oscillators and amplifiers [1-3]. Further power scaling of these systems is limited by thermal lensing which has yet to be addressed in great detail. In this work we present experimental and finite element analysis (FEA) results on the investigation of thermal lensing in a red-diode-pumped Alexandrite laser. Differences in the thermal lensing power for non-lasing and lasing conditions are attributed to a ‘population lens’ effect. In a separate study stable self-Q-switching (SQS) is observed in an Alexandrite laser cavity containing only the gain medium where the SQS loss mechanism is attributed to the population lens.