Refine
Year of publication
Document Type
Language
- English (34)
- German (7)
- Multiple languages (1)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (42)
Keywords
- adaptive optics (3)
- deformable mirror (3)
- active optics (2)
- active optics, adaptive optics, sharpness metrics, aberration compensation, algorithm design (2)
- deformable mirrors (2)
- laser machining (2)
- space optics (2)
- space telescopes (2)
- Active or adaptive optics (1)
- Deformable mirror, adaptive mirror, unimorph mirror, high-power laser (1)
Institute
We report on interferometric measurements of the thermo-optical aberrations of the laser medium of an Yb:YAG thin-disk laser in pumped and cw lasing conditions at several pump-power levels with a mean repeatability of 5 nm. These measurements build the basis for future intracavity compensation of the aberrations with our deformable mirror in order to improve the fundamental-mode efficiency.
Novel unimorph deformable mirror with monolithic tip-tilt functionality for solid state lasers
(2011)
We present a new type of unimorph deformable mirror with monolithic tip-tilt functionality. The tip-tilt actuation is based on a spiral arm design. The mirror will be used in high-power laser resonators for real-time intracavity phase control. The additional tip-tilt correction with a stroke up to 6 μm simplifies the resonator alignment significantly. The mirror is optimized for a laser beam footprint of about 10 mm. We have modeled and optimized this mirror by finite element calculations and we will present design criteria and tradeoffs for this mirrors. The mirror is manufactured from a super-polished glass substrate with very low surface scattering and excellent dielectric coating.
The actuator pattern of an adaptive mirror determines the amplitudes and the fidelities of the mirror deformations that can be achieved. In this study, we analyze and compare different electrode patterns of piezoelectric unimorph deformable mirrors using a numerical finite element model. The analysis allows us to determine the optimum actuator pattern, and it is also applicable to bimorph mirrors. The model is verified by comparing its predictions with experimental results of our prototype of a novel unimorph deformable mirror.
We present, to the best of our knowledge, the first intracavity pumped Yb:YAG thin-disk laser. It operates at 1050.7 nm with a quantum defect of just 1.74% due to pumping at 1032.4 nm. Low absorption of the pump light at the pump wavelength of 1032.4 nm is compensated for by placing the disk inside the resonator of another Yb:YAG thin-disk laser which is diode-pumped at 940 nm. The intra-cavity pumped laser has an output power of 10.3 W and a slope efficiency of 8.3%
We report interferometric measurements of the temperature coefficient of the refractive index (dn=dT) and the coefficient of thermal expansion (a) of a praseodymium-doped yttrium lithium fluoride (Pr:YLF) crystal and of a fused silica reference sample. Our phase-resolved interferometric method yields a large number of data points and thus allows a precise measurement and a good error estimation. Furthermore, both dn=dT and a are obtained simultaneously from a single measurement which reduces errors that can occur in separate measurements. Over the temperature range from 20 °C to 80 °C, the value of dn=dT of Pr:YLF decreases from -5.2 x 10-6 /K to -6.2 x 10-6 /K for the ordinary refractive index and from -7.6 x 10-6 /K to -8.6 x 10-6 /K for the extraordinary refractive index. The coefficient of thermal expansion for the a-axis of Pr:YLF increases from 16.4 x 10-6 /K to 17.8 x 10-6 /K over the same temperature range.
It has been shown that the beam quality and the efficiency of high-power solid-state lasers could be enhanced by the use of deformable mirrors in order to compensate for optical aberrations. An intracavity compensation requires a deformable mirror which is capable of handling very high laser intensities. The active diameter of the deformable mirror should be a few millimeters in order to match typical fundamental mode laser beam diameters. There is a wide variety of commercially available deformable mirrors, but neither meets all requirements.
