Optics Communications 274 (2007) 422–428

www.elsevier.com/locate/optcom

Theoretical investigation of feasibility of Yb:YAG as laser material

for nanosecond pulse emission with large energies in the Joule range
Martin Ostermeyer, Alexander Straesser *

University of Potsdam, Institute of Physics, Nonlinear Optics and Experimental Quantum Information, Am Neuen Palais 10, 14469 Potsdam, Germany

Received 25 September 2006; received in revised form 12 January 2007; accepted 22 January 2007

Abstract

The long fluorescence lifetime of the upper laser level of Yb:YAG seems to make it an attractive material for the realization of
Q-switched pulses with large pulse energy. The consequences of the spectroscopic parameter set of Yb:YAG for the feasibility of a large
pulse energy laser, which emits pulses with nanosecond duration, are addressed on the basis of a rate equation model. The rate equations
are analytically solved and applied to the optical side pumping of Yb:YAG rods. The thermal population of the lower laser level and the
saturation of the laser material are discussed in specific.
 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

OCIS: 140.3580; 160.3380

Keywords: Solid-state lasers; Laser materials

1. Introduction the laser system. Using a rate equation based analysis in

Two pairs of properties of Yb:YAG make it worthwhile
to critically evaluate Yb:YAG as laser material in the
pulsed domain. First, the large fluorescence lifetime con-
nected with a lower emission cross section, and second
the high quantum efficiency connected with a small spectral
distance of the lower laser level and the ground level.
The high quantum efficiency arises from the small spec-
tral distance of the upper laser level to the pump band and
the lower laser level to the ground level respectively (see
Fig. 1). This high quantum efficiency can lead to very effi-
cient laser systems. On the other hand the close spectral
distance of the lower laser level and the ground level can
easily lead to an increased thermal population of the lower
laser level compared to worse quantum efficiency materials
like Nd:YAG. This in turn will decrease the efficiency of
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 3319771026; fax: +49 3319771134.
E-mail address: oster@rz.uni-potsdam.de (A. Straesser).
this paper we illustrate that the thermal population of the
lower laser level and the big saturation flux of Yb:YAG
are severe obstacles for the realization of ns-pulses with
energy in the Joule range in a bulk geometry like the laser
rod. Even having a long fluorescence lifetime of about 1 ms
we will expound that Yb:YAG is not a suitable laser mate-
rial choice for the realization of ns-pulses with larger ener-
gies in the multi 100 mJ range and beyond.
Nevertheless in the past the big quantum efficiency has
been the major motivation for choosing Yb:YAG as laser
active material. The first flash-lamp pumped Yb:YAG laser
was set up in the mid-1970s [1]. There is a number of real-
ized Yb:YAG-lasers starting mainly in the 1990s with the
development of InGaAs-diodes [2]. These were published
with growing average output power up to the kilowatt
range and near diffraction limited beam qualities. Espe-
cially the realized cw-lasers have very compact Yb:YAG
crystal geometries. Examples can be found in [3] for theo-
retical and principal design aspects of the thin disc laser
in [4] for a demonstration of the TEM00 capability of the
thin disc laser. In [6] Bibeau et. al demonstrate a 2-mm

0030-4018/$ - see front matter  2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.optcom.2007.03.002
 M. Ostermeyer, A. Straesser / Optics Communications 274 (2007) 422–428
Fig. 1. Energy level scheme of Yb:YAG. fi Are the relative thermal
occupancies and the ki’s denote the wave number for the different levels
with regard to the ground level.
diameter compact end pumped rod oscillator whereas in [5]
Goodno et. al present a 2-mm thin composite slab based
oscillator. Quasi cw-operation is favorable for Yb:YAG
to overcome the thermal population of the lower laser
level. Bruesselbach et. al demonstrate in [7,8] that Yb:YAG
lasers in quasi cw-operation can indeed be brought up to
the average power kilowatt range.
The compact crystal size has limits for Q-switched sys-
tems with higher pulse energies. At a given pulse energy
the cross section of the rod can only be decreased until
the damage threshold of the material is or the coating is
reached. A length reduction and simultaneous expansion
in the transverse direction like for he thin disc on the other
hand leads to lower gain coefficients so that the energy
becomes harder to extract from an amplifier. Q-switched
end pumped systems are theoretically analyzed in [9] and
experiments were conducted, e.g. by Fan [10]. With an
end-pumped rod Fan achieved 40 W of CW power at cryo-
genic temperatures [11]. In [5] a Q-switched dual rod oscil-
lator with 50 mJ pulse energy at a repetition rate of 10 kHz
is reported. The pulse width was 77 ns. Aus der Au et al.
presented a face pumped thin-disk pulsed Yb:YAG DPSSL
with an output power of 16 W [12]. Side-pumped rod
Yb:YAG lasers were developed in experiments conducted
by Bruesselbach and Sumida [7,8,13,14]. The maximum
output power reached in cw-operation was 950 W. Yun
et al. presented some useful theoretical considerations con-
cerning the pumping scheme and the oscillator output
power performance for a side pumped rod laser head in
[15]. However, all these examples do not consider nor dis-
cuss the capability of Yb:YAG as laser material to produce
ns-pulses with energies in the Joule range.
The long fluorescence lifetime of 0.95 ms [16] makes it
worthwhile to examine Yb:YAG as material to realize
higher pulse energies for ns-pulses. A long fluorescence life-
423
time becomes even more interesting in diode pumped oper-
ation since the peak power of diode arrays is significantly
lower compared to flash-lamps. The counterpart of the lar-
ger fluorescence lifetime is the small emission cross section
of 2.1 · 1024 m2 of Yb:YAG. This small emission cross
section leads to high pulse energies required to saturate
the gain in the laser material. When working with ns-
pulses, this becomes problematic. The saturation energy
fluence is in the same order of magnitude as the typical
damage threshold of the laser material for ns pulses.
In this paper these ramifications are investigated concep-
tually with regard to the feasibility of rod-oscillators for the
generation and rod-amplifiers for the amplification of ns-
pulses with large pulse energies in the Joule range. The
rod, like the slab, is a suitable geometry choice for the real-
ization of larger pulse energies. Bulk geometries like rod or
slab allow for high gain factors and storage of larger
amounts of energy combined with bigger cross section to
avoid damage at high pulse energies.
In Section 2 of this paper, the energy level scheme in
Yb:YAG is revisited. The rate equations for optical pump-
ing of Yb:YAG are formulated for the side pumped case
and analytically solved. Section 3 uses the solved rate equa-
tions to consider thermal population of the lower laser
level. Finally, Section 4 deals with the extraction of the
stored energy from Yb:YAG rod amplifiers illustrated at
a specific example. Different measures are discussed to
improve the extraction efficiency. A reduction of the rods
cross section helps both it will relatively reduce the thermal
population of the lower laser level and will also increase the
extraction efficiency. It is an optimization procedure since
the cross section reduction is damage limited.
2. Energy levels and rate equations for Yb:YAG
Yb:YAG can be pumped at different wavelengths
around 935 nm. We consider specifically the absorption
band at 941 nm (see Fig. 1) and the emission at 1029 nm.
The level scheme in Yb:YAG can be considered as quasi
4 level scheme. Both the ground with the lower laser level
and the pump with the upper laser level are located within
one manifold. This causes the small energetic gap between
the pump and laser wavelength with the good quantum effi-
ciency on the one hand and easy thermal population of the
lower laser level on the other hand.
The thermal occupancies fi in Fig. 1 give the relative
population due to the thermal energy at a temperature of
300 K. They are calculated assuming a Boltzmann distribu-
tion of the population of the different energy levels. At a
cooling water temperature of 293 and 300 K is a reasonable
average rod temperature [20]. Of course the rods tempera-
ture is dependent on the rods diameter and the absorbed
pump power.
The rate equations for the pump process can be formu-
lated for the population density of the upper manifold nU
and the lower manifold nL with the emission and absorp-
tion cross sections re and ra for the pump at 941 nm.
424 M. Ostermeyer, A. Straesser / Optics Communications 274 (2007) 422–428

The level system can be treated as two level system under

the assumption that there are fast relaxations between the
levels within one manifold compared to the fluorescence
lifetime of the laser transition [16]. Suitably formulated
for a transversally pumped laser the two equations for
the population density of upper and lower manifold, nU
and nL read:

dnU nU re 941
¼  þ W  ðnd  nU Þ  W   nU ð1Þ
dt sf ra 941
dnL nd  nL re 941
¼  W  nL þ W   ðnd  nL Þ ð2Þ
dt sf ra 941
P pump  gexcit  kL
W ðr; lÞ ¼ ð3Þ
h  c  p  r 2  l  nd

We denotes the pump rate and gexcit denotes the excita- Fig. 2. Stored energy in laser rods with three different radii as a function
tion efficiency and P pump the Pumppower. Throughout the of temperature. Pump power 1 kW, pump duration 1 ms, rod length
paper for the calculations an excitation efficiency of 60% 10 cm. An excitation efficiency of 60% was assumed.
is assumed, which is a typical value for side pumped rod
laser heads. kL stands for the laser wavelength, h and c
are the Plank-constant and velocity of light in vacuum, r rods of average pump powers in the kilowatt range support
denoted the radius of the laser rod, l the length of the that there is a temperature variation of a few degrees over
rod, nd is the density of laser active ions in the host, and the rod’s cross section only [20].
sf is the fluorescence lifetime of the upper leaser level.These Now, this Eq. (6) will be used to evaluate how critical
rate equations can be solved analytically if a constant the thermal population of the lower laser level is for an effi-
pump rate is assumed in time and space for the entire laser cient buildup of inversion.
material. This is a fair assumption for well designed diode
side pumped laser heads. The solution after integration 3. Design considerations
reads:
  The inversion density can be increased by decreasing the
1
sf
þ W ðr; lÞ  rrae 941
941
 nd diameter of the laser rod while keeping the absorbed share
nL ðtpump ; r; l; sf Þ ¼   of pump power constant. Thus, for higher temperatures
W ðr; lÞ  1 þ rrae 941941
þ s1f smaller diameter rods can overcome the thermal popula-
    tion of the lower laser level more efficiently compared to
r
 W ðr;lÞ 1þre 941 þs1 tpump
nd  W ðr; lÞ  e a 941 f larger diameter rods (see Fig. 2). The difference in the
þ   amount of stored inversion energy for different rod diame-
W ðr; lÞ  1 þ rrae 941
941
þ s1f ters at low temperatures as shown in Fig. 2 stems from
ð4Þ bleaching of the rod at the pump-wavelength. Since the
excitation efficiency is artificially held constant when the
nU ðtpump ; r; l; sf Þ rod diameter is decreased in the calculation the pump
    !
 W ðr;lÞ 1þre
r 941 þs1 tpump power density grows. With higher pump density a decreas-
nd  W ðr; lÞ  1e a 941 f
ing number of ions are in the lower manifold resulting in an
¼   ð5Þ absolute shortage of excitable ions. The inversion in all
W ðr; lÞ  1 þ rrae 941
941
þ s1f rods suffers equally from the same fluorescence loss during
the pump duration of 1 ms of around 37%.
The inversion population density can be calculated from Both low temperature operation and high pump power
these two populations weighed with relative occupancies in densities help to avoid or overcome the consequences of
the laser sublevels f4 and f2. the thermal population. However, especially when striving
for ns-pulses with higher pulse energies there is a lower
Dn ¼ f4 ðT Þ  nU  f2 ðT Þ  nL ð6Þ
limit for the rod diameter because of the damage threshold
The relative occupancies are temperature dependent. of the rod.
A Boltzmann distribution is assumed like in [16]. A homog- At a given pulse duration a certain pulse energy Eout
enous temperature is assumed within the rod. Strictly requires a minimum rod radius rrod work that guarantees
speaking this is not valid in bulk geometries. But to gain damage free operation. We assume throughout this paper
principle insight in the energy extraction from Yb:YAG that staying a factor of five below the damage threshold
rods this simple homogenous temperature distribution is of 20 J/cm2 for 10 ns pulses [21], reliable damage free oper-
sufficient. Finite elements calculations for side pumped ation can be obtained at higher repetition rates up to 1 k.
 M. Ostermeyer, A. Straesser / Optics Communications 274 (2007) 422–428
Fig. 3. Realizable pulse energies of 100 ns-pulses as a function of the
required rod cross section and the necessary pump power P bleach; 1029 nm to
reach equal population of upper and lower laser level for a 10 cm long rod
at a pump duration of 1 ms.
To translate the damage threshold Edam;0 specified for a
pulse duration t0 to a different pulse duration t1 a simple
transformation rule is applied [17]:
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Edam;1 ¼ Edam;0  t1 =t0
The rod radius rrodwork is also connected with a minimum
pump power, which is necessary to reach equal popula-
tion of the lower and upper laser level called P bleach; 1029 .
These number triples, rrod work , Eout , and P bleach; 1029 are calcu-
lated for a pump duration of 1 ms and a laser pulse dura-
tion of 100 ns. They are plotted in Fig. 3. For example a
3-mm diameter rod a pulse energy of up to 0.9 J could be
realized damage free but a pump energy of 3 J (3050 W
for 1 ms) has to be invested solely to reach equal popula-
tion of the lower and upper laser level. For a 1 mm diam-
eter rod a pump energy of only 0.35 J (350 W for 1 ms)
has to be invested for equal population. But the maxi-
mally realizable damage free pulse energy in this case
reaches 0.1 J only. This parameter field shows how diffi-
cult it is to realize a damage free and efficient laser con-
figuration for short pulses up to the assumed pulse
duration of 100 ns.
4. Extraction of stored inversion energy
Typically larger pulse energies in the Joule range are
generated by amplifying the radiation from a master
oscillator. Amplification of ns pulses by Yb:YAG ampli-
fiers shall be considered theoretically in this section. The
quoted pump powers are thought to be quasi cw pump
power of pulsed laser diodes. The duty cycle in this case
could be increased up to the fracture limit of the laser
rod of given length. Since a high pump power density
425
helps to overcome the consequences of the thermal pop-
ulation of the lower leaser level (see Section 3) the rod
should be chosen as short as possible for the desired
maximum duty cycle.
For our exemplary calculations of the energy extraction
we choose a rod length of 16 cm. This should be thought of
as two birefringence compensated 8 cm long rods or four
birefringence compensated 4 cm rods. Although it is an
arbitrary choice of a rod length it is a reasonable choice
for compact (short) laser amplifiers and allows us to reach
both pulse energies in the Joule range and high average
output powers up to the kilowatt level. While this is a spe-
cific choice of a rod length it still allows us to generally dis-
cuss the main dependencies and ramifications of the energy
extraction problem.
Together with a relatively long fluorescence lifetime of
0.95 ms [16] Yb:YAG has an emission cross section of
2:1  1014 cm2 . Compared to Nd:YAG this is roughly
one order of magnitude smaller. A small emission cross sec-
tion on the one hand prevents an amplifier from suffering
from amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). On the other
hand the stored energy in the laser material becomes harder
to extract for a small emission cross section. More input
energy is required, or more passes through the amplifying
material are necessary to saturate the gain. The saturation
fluence hm=r in Yb:YAG is 9.2 J/cm2 [16]. This is the same
order of magnitude as typical damage thresholds of coat-
ings for pulses with 10 ns duration embody [21]. The dam-
age threshold can be pushed further away from the
saturation fluence when longer pulse durations are chosen.
Assuming an operation five times below damage threshold
Fig. 4 shows when the allowed energy fluence becomes big-
ger than the saturation energy density. Under the above
given circumstances this is the case for pulse durations
longer than 53 ns.
Given that a pulse duration is found that allows for
damage free operation of the amplifier we further want
Fig. 4. Energy fluence five times below the damage threshold of 20 J/cm2
for 10 ns pulses as a function of the pulse duration tpulse .
426 M. Ostermeyer, A. Straesser / Optics Communications 274 (2007) 422–428

to ask for the efficiency of the amplification process. We

consider two efficiencies, the well known extraction effi-
ciency gextr and an amplification efficiency gampl :
pulse energyout  pulse energyin
gextr ¼
stored energy
Eout  Ein ðEout  Ein Þ  r
¼ ¼ ð7Þ
Estored g0 l  pr2  hm
pulse energyout  pulse energyin
gampl ¼
excitation eff:  pump power  pump duration
Eout  Ein
¼ ð8Þ
gexcit  P pump  tpump
gextr characterizes solely the extraction of the stored energy
from the material, whereas gampl characterizes the efficiency
of the amplification with regard to the totally invested
pump power reaching the upper laser level.
Fig. 6. Population of lower laser level and inversion density for the
For all the following calculations we pursue a design parameters given in Fig. 5 at a temperature of 300 K.
goal of 1 J of pulse energy and calculate the possible pairs
of pump power and incident pulse energy to generate this pulses a minimum possible rod diameter of 3.18 mm
pulse energy of 1 J. The necessary pump power at a certain results. Fig. 5 shows the possible pairs of pump power
incident pulse energy E1 is calculated by the Frantz– and incident pulse energy for this 3.18 mm diameter rod
Nodvik-equation for a double pass amplifier [18]. used in a double pass amplifier scheme with regard to their
 0 
extraction and amplification efficiency.
E2 ¼ ES  ln 1 þ ðeE1 =ES  1Þ  eg0 l ; g00 ¼ ð1  g1 Þg0 ;
The extraction efficiency ranges between 47% and 92%
E 1  E0
g1 ¼ which seems to be quite high. It increases towards higher
g 0 l  ES
incident pulse energy where saturation of the gain becomes
Here E1 describes the pulse energy after the double pass easier. However, the amplification efficiency stays below
through the amplifier, ES denotes the saturation energy, 20% for all input energies. The amplification efficiency
g0 and g00 denote the small signal gain per unit length before decreases with higher input pulse energies because the share
single and after single pass respectively, and g1 is the of the thermal population of the lower laser level becomes
extraction efficiency of the first amplifier pass. relatively more severe compared to the simultaneously
If we consider a pulse duration of 100 ns for a top head smaller pump powers. The reason for the big gap between
profile pulse in time and space and again demand to stay the two efficiencies again lies in the investment of a big
5-fold below a damage threshold of 20 J/cm2 for 10 ns amount of energy to overcome the thermal population of

Fig. 5. Extraction and amplification efficiency of a 1 J output pulse from a

double pass amplifier with a 16 cm long and 3.18 mm diameter laser rod Fig. 7. Extraction and amplification efficiency at an operation tempera-
thought for a pulse duration of tpulse ¼ 100 ns at an operation temperature ture of 77 K for a double pass through a rod with otherwise identical
of 300 K, and a pump pulse duration of 1 ms. parameters as given in Fig. 5.
 M. Ostermeyer, A. Straesser / Optics Communications 274 (2007) 422–428
Fig. 8. Population of lower laser level and inversion density for an
operation temperature of 77 K with otherwise identical parameters as
given in Fig. 5.
the lower laser level. This invested energy is not covered by
the definition of the extraction efficiency.
Fig. 6 shows that the inversion density and population
density of the lower laser level have the same order of mag-
nitude. For lower pump powers there is even more energy
stored in the lower laser level than is usable as inversion.
This big amount of energy in the lower laser level is a severe
obstacle for an efficient conversion of the pump energy into
the energy of the laser pulse.
The thermal population of the lower laser level can be
distinctly decreased by cooling down the laser material to
liquid nitrogen temperatures below 78 K. The amplifica-
tion efficiency can reach values above 50% in this case
(see Fig. 7) since the population of the lower laser level is
Fig. 9. Extraction and amplification efficiency of an 1 J output pulse from
a double pass amplifier with a 16 cm long and 1.78 mm diameter laser rod
at an operation temperature of 300 K, thought for a pulse duration of
tpulse ¼ 1 ls. The pump pulse duration is 1 ms.
427
Fig. 10. Population of lower laser level, for a rod diameter of 1.78 mm
with otherwise identical parameters as in Fig. 9.
pushed back to almost zero as can be seen in Fig. 8. For
an input energy of 200 mJ in this case a pump power of
only 2.9 kW has to be invested to generate a 1 J pulse com-
pared to 9.45 kW for the 300 K case.
Instead of decreasing the temperature the second option
to generate inversion efficiently is to compact the volume of
the laser material. When keeping the length of the rod con-
stant and decreasing the diameter of the laser rod, the pulse
duration has to be increased to avoid surpassing the dam-
age threshold of the rod’s endface. Thus, we consider a 1 ls
laser pulse. If again we want to stay five times below a dam-
age threshold of 20 J/cm2 for 10 ns pulses we can reduce
the rod diameter down to 1.78 mm. In this case for high
enough input pulse energies the amplification efficiency
almost reaches 30% (see Fig. 9). From Fig. 10 it can be
concluded that while the thermal population stays the same
Fig. 11. Extraction and amplification efficiency of an 1 J output pulse
from a Nd:YAG double pass amplifier with a 16 cm long and 3.18 mm
diameter laser rod, thought for a pulse duration of tpulse ¼ 100 ns. The
pump pulse duration is 250 ls.
428 M. Ostermeyer, A. Straesser / Optics Communications 274 (2007) 422–428
because of the higher pump power density the inversion
density is distinctly higher compared to the 3.78 mm diam-
eter rod (compare Fig. 6).
Still, if these results are compared to Nd:YAG (see
Fig. 11) it has to be concluded that in this pulse duration
regime, which is shorter than 1 ls, there is no advantage in
the operation of Yb:YAG. This is true for the efficiency as
long as the rods are not severely cooled down below 100 K.
The advantage of the high quantum efficiency of Yb:YAG
can be used best in a thin-disk geometry [3]. Here a compact
volume can be realized and thermal population can be over-
come more easily. But as mentioned before, making the rod
short or even thin and small in diameter has its limits when
realizing higher pulse energies due to problems of realizing
high gain and good extraction efficiencies on the one hand
and due to damage threshold problems on the other hand.
5. Conclusion
Although Yb:YAG has a long fluorescence lifetime of
about one millisecond it is not a suitable material choice
for the realization of ns-pulses with pulse energies in the
multi 100 mJ range and beyond. Our rate equation based
analysis helped illustrating that the thermal population of
the lower laser level and the big saturation flux of Yb:YAG
are severe obstacles for the realization of theses ns-pulse in
a bulk geometry like the laser rod. But a bulk geometry is
needed to provide high gain and appropriate cross section
to avoid damage of the laser material.
At a given pulse energy damage becomes less probable the
longer the pulses are. Consequentially, in the ls- and ms-
pulse domain compact Yb:YAG rod lasers have been setup
with high efficiency [7,8,19] whereas no such examples exist
in the literature for higher pulse energy lasers with ns-pulses.
References
[1] G.A. Bogomolova, D.N. Vylegzhanin, A.A. Kaminskii, Sov. Phys.
JETP 42 (1976) 440.
[2] M.C. Wu, N.A. Olsson, D. Sivco, A.Y. Cho, Appl. Phys. 56 (1990)
221.
[3] K. Contag, M. Karszewski, C. Stewen, A. Giesen, H. Hugel,
Quantum Electron. 29 (8) (1999) 697.
[4] M. Karszewski, U. Brauch, K. Contag, A. Giesen, I. Johannsen, C.
Stewen, A. Voss, AMC3 82–84, 100 W TEM00 operation of Yb:YAG
thin disc laser with high efficiency.
[5] G.D. Goodno, S. Palese, J. Harkenrider, H. Injeyan, Opt. Lett. 26
(21) (2001) 1672.
[6] C. Bibeau, R.J. Beach, S.C. Mitchell, M.A. Emanuel, J. Skidmore,
C.A. Ebbers, S.B. Sutton, K.S. Jancaitis, IEEE J. Quant. Electron. 34
(1998) 2010.
[7] D.S. Sumida, A.S. Betin, H. Bruesselbach, R. Byren, S.
Matthews, R. Reeder, M.S. Mangir, Laser Focus World (June)
(1999) 63.
[8] H. Bruesselbach, D.S. Sumida, Opt. Lett. 21 (7) (1996) 480.
[9] R.J. Beach, IEEE J. Quant. Electron. 31 (9) (1995) 1606.
[10] T.Y. Fan, S. Klunk, G. Henein, Opt. Lett. 18 (1993) 423.
[11] T.J. Fan, Proc. SPIE 3381 (2000) 200.
[12] J. Aus der Au, G.J. Spuehler, T. Suedmeyer, R. Paschotta, R. Hoevel,
M. Moder, S. Erhard, M. Karszewski, A. Giesen, U. Keller, Opt.
Lett. 25 (2000) 859.
[13] E.C. Honea, R.J. Beach, S.C. Mitchell, J.A. Skidmore, M.A.
Emanuel, S.B. Sutton, S.A. Payne, P.V. Avizonis, R.S. Monroe,
D.G. Harris, Opt. Lett. 25 (2000) 805.
[14] D.S. Sumida, H. Bruesselbach, R.W. Byren, M. Mangir, R. Reeder,
Proc. SPIE 3265 (1998) 100.
[15] M. Yun, S. Lee, S.K. Kim, B.H. Cha, Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 41 (2002)
4547.
[16] H.W. Bruesselbach, D.S. Sumida, R.A. Reeder, R.W. Byren, IEEE J.
Sel. Top. Quant. Electron. 3 (1997) 105.
[17] W. Koechner, Solid-State Laser Engineering, fifth ed., Springer
(Chapter 11.4.1).
[18] L.M. Frantz, J.S. Nodvik, J. Appl. Phys. 34 (1963) 2346.
[19] E.C. Honea, R.J. Beach, S.C. Mitchell, P.V. Avizonis, Opt. Lett. 24
(3) (1999) 154.
[20] See e.g., resulting temperatures for finite elements calculations side
cooled rods in table 4 in: M. Ostermeyer, I. Brandenburg,
‘‘Simulation of the extraction of near diffraction limited Gaussian
beams from side pumped core doped ceramic Nd:YAG and
conventional laser rods’’, Opt. Expr. 13 (2005) 10145. The calcula-
tions here are done for Nd:YAG. For Yb:YAG the thermal load at
a given pump power is factor of (1-808/1064)/(1-941/1029) = 2.8
lower, leading to even lower temperature gradients compared to
Nd:YAG.
[21] Ralf Menzel, Photonics Linear and Nonlinear Interactions of Laser
Light and Matter, Springer, 2001 (Chapter 5.6).