Solid-state laser pumping by light guides

What we believe to be novel pumping schemes for lamp-pumped solid-state lasers are proposed. Based on the refractive and total internal reflection principles, curved fused-silica light guides of rectangular cross sections are used to couple the pump radiation from an arc lamp into a laser crystal. The performances of light-guide pumping schemes are analyzed through a nonsequential ray-trace program and are compared to that of a single elliptical cavity. Improved pump radiation distribution around the laser crystal was registered. The light-guide cavities also permit tailoring the pump flux distribution within the active medium. A lamp-pumped Nd:YAG laser by a light-guide cavity was built and tested. An overall laser efficiency of 1.1% was measured. (c) 2006 Optical Society of America.