Thermal Management System for Solid State Lasers

Diode Pumped Solid State Lasers (DPSSLs) are an important and rapidly growing light source. They also represent one of the most challenging thermal problems in industry, both in cooling the diode pump lasers and in the thermal management of the solidstate lasing rod itself. A significant amount of very successful research and development effort has been expended in the area of laser diode cooling, but little has been devoted to the thermal management of the solid state crystal.In this proposal we propose the use of index-matched coolants to provide internal cooling throughout the crystal. This should reduce the index of refraction gradients by as much as an order of magnitude, as well as reducing thermal stresses. The Phase Iwill focus on an analytic assessment of the approach, evaluating means of controlling the temperature fields in the coolant and crystal to minimize optical path distortions. Diode-Pumped Solid State Lasers are now leading the high power commercial lasermarket. The work proposed here will directly support this market, giving higher powers, better beam quality, and more reliability.