Abstract.
We have measured detailed thermal lensing in a power amplifier of a terawatt Ti:sapphire laser operating at 50 Hz. The thermal lensing in the amplifier was evaluated by measuring the optical path difference (OPD) using a Shack–Hartmann-type wavefront sensor. It was found that the radial dependence of the OPD was almost quadratic in the pumping region, despite inhomogeneous pumping. Therefore, a simple spherical lens or convex mirror effectively compensates for the thermal lens in our amplifier. We found that the thermal lens profile was temporally stable, and did not degrade the pointing stability of the amplified laser pulses. We also found that the time constant of the thermal distortion in our power amplifier was approximately 0.5 s.
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Received: 3 September 2001 / Revised version: 23 January 2002 / Published online: 14 March 2002
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Ito, S., Nagaoka, H., Miura, T. et al. Measurement of thermal lensing in a power amplifier of a terawatt Ti:sapphire laser . Appl Phys B 74, 343–347 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s003400200812
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s003400200812