Effect of thermal lensing on the mode matching between pump and laser beams in Cr4+: forsterite lasers: a numerical study

Abstract

The numerical study presented in this paper investigates the role of thermal lensing on the mode matching between the pump beam and the cavity beam in continuous-wave end-pumped Cr4+:forsterite lasers. A suitable mode overlap function was first derived to calculate the degree of overlap between the pump beam and the fundamental mode of the resonator. The effect of thermal lensing on mode matching was then numerically investigated by calculating the changes in the average value of the mode overlap function due to variations in pump power and crystal boundary temperature. Thermal lensing was taken into account by calculating the pump-induced thermal gradients and by approximating the gain medium as a distributed quadratic lens. Finally, the model was used to offer guidelines about how one of the resonator lenses should be readjusted in order to maintain optimum mode matching as the boundary temperature and pump power are varied.