Simultaneous solar laser emissions from three Nd:YAG rods within a single pump cavity

Abstract

We report here, to the best of our knowledge, the first simultaneous emission of three continuous-wave solar laser beams by end-side-pumping three 3.0 mm diameter, 25 mm length Nd:YAG single-crystal rods within a single conical pump cavity. An aspheric fused silica lens was used to couple the concentrated solar radiation from the focal zone of a parabolic mirror with 1.0 m2 effective collection area into the laser rods within the pump cavity. 18.3 W multimode solar laser power was measured, resulting in 5.1% laser slope efficiency. 0.036 W laser beam brightness figure of merit was also achieved for each beam, being 9 times more than that of the most efficient solar laser with 32.5 W/m2 collection efficiency. Since the three laser rods were associated with their own 1064 nm output mirrors, it was possible to adjust individually both solar laser output power levels and beam qualities of the three laser beams by adopting different resonant cavity lengths, enabling potential solar laser applications.