Dual-cavity Nd:YAG laser with Laguerre-Gaussian (LG(0n)) mode output

Abstract

Direct excitation of an arbitrary Laguerre-Gaussian (LG(0n)) mode with helical wavefronts in a diode-end pumped solid state laser employing a dual-cavity configuration is reported. Through simple adjustments of the intra-cavity apertures in the dual-cavity laser configuration, the spatial gain distribution and the cavity loss could be optimized for the targeted LG(0) (n) mode. This approach has been applied to a diode pumped Nd: YAG laser to achieve selective lasing of the LG(01), LG(02), and LG(03) modes. Also, an optical vortex laser beam was produced directly from the laser resonator by determining the wavefront handedness of each LG mode output using an intra-cavity etalon. The prospects of further power scaling and laser performance improvements will be discussed. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.