A straightforward method is presented for generating a stigmatic spherical thermal lens in laser-diode-pumped, Brewster-cut solid-state gain media by shaping the aspect ratio of the elliptical pumped region. Demonstration of this laser head design with Nd:GdVO(4) as the gain medium yields a stable, efficient, high-power (>20W) diode-pumped laser at 1063nm. Analysis of the spatial mode characteristics of a 67cm-long symmetric resonator both confirms the radially symmetric nature of the pump-induced thermal lens and indicates that laser resonators incorporating this head design can readily generate a high spatial beam quality (M(2) < 2).
A high-resolution, flat-field, plane-grating, f/10 spectrometer based on the novel design proposed by Gil and Simon [Appl. Opt. 22, 152 (1983)] is demonstrated. The spectrometer design employs off-axis parabolic collimation and camera mirrors in a configuration that eliminates spherical aberrations and minimizes astigmatism, coma, and field curvature in the image plane. In accordance with theoretical analysis, the performance of this spectrometer achieves a high spatial resolution over the large detection area, which is shown to be limited only by the quality of its optics and their proper alignment within the spatial resolution of a 13 microm x 13 microm pixelated CCD detector. With a 1500 lines/mm grating in first order, the measured spectral resolving power of lambda/Dlambda = 2.5(+/-0.5) x 10(4) allows the clear resolution of the violet Ar(I) doublet at 419.07 and 419.10 nm.
Use of a transverse KD?P Pockels cell and novel low-loss sapphire Rochon polarizer to cavity dump a hard-aperture, Kerr-lens mode-locked, Ti:sapphire oscillator is demonstrated. High-quality 90-fs pulses with energies of ~50 nJ at repetition rates of up to 50 kHz were obtained.
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