A study of the effect of axial mode spacing on the single longitudinal mode performance in end pumped solid-state lasers

Abstract

In this paper, we present the study of the effect of axial mode spacing on the performance of a single longitudinal mode (SLM) laser in an end pumped solid-state laser system. We present a theoretical analysis of an SLM laser for arbitrary values of axial mode spacing, which predicts that the ratio of the maximum pump power up to which SLM operation is possible to the pump power at the lasing threshold is strongly dependent on the axial mode separation. We also present the results of a study where a temperature controlled birefringent filter was used to increase the axial mode spacing in a diode end pumped solid-state laser system, resulting in an enhancement of the SLM laser performance. (C) 2006