Solar-Pumped Ce:Nd:YAG Laser Amplifier Design

Joana Almeida, Bruno D. Tibúrcio, Hugo Costa, Cláudia R. Vistas and Dawei Liang ()
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Joana Almeida: Centre of Physics and Technological Research (CEFITEC), Physics Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
Bruno D. Tibúrcio: Centre of Physics and Technological Research (CEFITEC), Physics Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
Hugo Costa: Centre of Physics and Technological Research (CEFITEC), Physics Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
Cláudia R. Vistas: Centre of Physics and Technological Research (CEFITEC), Physics Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal
Dawei Liang: Centre of Physics and Technological Research (CEFITEC), Physics Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal

Energies, 2025, vol. 18, issue 18, 1-19

Abstract: A solar-pumped Ce:Nd:YAG laser amplifier design is proposed to address the challenge of scaling output power in solar-pumped laser oscillators while maintaining high beam quality. The design employs a 1.33 m 2 flat Fresnel lens with a 2 m focal length as a primary concentrator, which is combined with a secondary homogenizing concentrator, featuring 40 mm × 40 mm input aperture, 200 mm length, and 11.3 mm × 26 mm output aperture, to provide efficient coupling and uniform distribution of solar radiation onto a 2.9 mm thick Ce:Nd:YAG slab with 11.3 mm × 26 mm surface area and two beveled corners. This geometry enables multiple total internal reflections of a 1064 nm TEM 00 mode seed laser beam inside the slab, ensuring efficient interaction with the active Ce 3+ and Nd 3+ ions in the gain medium. Performed numerical analysis shows that the present approach can deliver a uniform solar pump power density of 2.5 W/mm 2 to the slab amplifier. This value is 2.05-times higher than the numerically calculated power density incident on the Nd:YAG slab of the previous solar-pumped amplifier that achieved the highest continuous-wave laser gain of 1.64. Furthermore, the optimized slab geometry with 0.44 width-to-height ratio allows the seed laser to undergo 32 internal reflections, extending its optical path length by a factor of 1.45 compared to the earlier design. These numerical achievements, combined with the Ce:Nd:YAG medium’s capacity to deliver nearly 1.57-times more laser power than Nd:YAG, reveal the potential of proposed design to yield a gain enhancement factor of 4.16, making the first solar-pumped Ce:Nd:YAG amplifier a promising solution toward energy-efficient, sustainable solutions for terrestrial and space applications.

Keywords: solar-pumped; Ce:Nd:YAG; laser amplifier; laser gain; active medium; slab medium; Fresnel lens; concentrator; homogenizer (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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