Investigating Transient Thermal Effects in Flash-Lamp-Pumped Heat Capacity Nd:YAG Rod Laser

Transient thermal effects induced in the laser medium under heat capacity (HC) mode of operation and its influence on the output laser performance is presented. Thermal loading and the resulting negative lensing effects are shown to be different under lasing and nonlasing conditions. Negative refractive power of laser rod affecting the laser resonator stability was observed to be the major cause for the decline in the output power in HC mode. An active resonator model based on measured thermal refractive power is discussed and impact of resonator design parameters on laser beam quality is investigated. An output power of 152 W in HC mode for a run time of 5 s has been obtained. Comparative performance results in conventional continuously cooled (CC) mode is also discussed to highlight the characteristic differences in the two operating modes. Nearly 2–3 times better output beam quality was obtained in HC mode as compared to CC mode.