Solar pumped Nd:YAG laser efficiency enhancement using Cr:LiCAF frequency down-shifter

Highly efficient side-pumped solar laser with enhanced tracking-error compensation capacity

“…The LASCAD © software presented a good agreement in the calculated results, in relation to the measured output laser power performance, as shown in Table 5. Other laser materials can also be pumped by these concepts, such as alexandrite crystal media [26], composite laser rods such as YAG-Nd:YAG-YAG undoped-doped-undoped, and Nd:YAG grooved rods [17], Cr:Nd:YAG ceramic medium [11] and Cr: LiCAF [27]. New schemes of solar-pumped lasers, such as luminescent solar concentrator [28] and diffusive scattering cooling liquid [29]can also be further improved in their performances.…”

Solar Pumping of Fiber Lasers with Solid‐State Luminescent Concentrators: Design Optimization by Ray Tracing

“…It is possible to distinguish two focusing schemes: i) in end‐pumping, the focused sunlight is introduced to the laser cavity through one of the end mirrors; [ 3,4 ] and ii) in side‐pumping, the light pumps the gain medium transversely to the resonator direction. [ 5,6 ] The advantages of side‐pumping include a reduced need for system cooling (due to a more homogeneous absorption along the gain medium), [ 7 ] higher laser beam quality (brightness), [ 8 ] and increased scalability (by simply expanding the gain volume). [ 9 ] The highest laser brightness was achieved in TEM 00 operation of side‐pumped systems.…”

A Simple Multi-Pass Side-Pumping Scheme for Solar Powered Lasers

“…The output laser power in this case is more than 30 W, and the corresponding collection efficiency can be about 40 W/m 2 for solar intensity ~1000 W/m 2 higher than record power of 31.5 W/m 2 [12], obtained for end-side pumped scheme of solar laser. To further increase the efficiency, Nd:Ce:YAG [20] or external sensitizers [15] can be used.…”

“…[13], which is about 1.5 times less than the result for a combined pumping scheme. For the increase the efficiency we proposed a new approach in [14,15] which based on the use of external sensitizers (solar spectrum frequency converters) for both of end-and side-pumping schemes. By means of simulation calculations it was shown the possibility of increase the pumping efficiency up to 33% in the case of pure end-pumping scheme and 15% in the case of side-pumping that is the side-pumping scheme was less efficient.…”

“…Therefore, here, continuing those studies we propose a new way for the further increase the efficiency of side-pumping scheme. The advantages of the proposed approach are demonstrated by the example of the Nd:YAG active medium, but without external sensitizers [14,15], in order to show the contribution of the proposed approach to the efficiency increase in its purest form.…”