Efficient laser based on neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet with passive cooling of the active element and linear laser diode arrays

This paper considers a variant of a compact laser emitter for a rangefinder with passive (contact) cooling of the cylindrical active element and linear laser diode arrays. The density distribution of the stored energy in the cross-section of the active element was calculated when pumped from three and five sides, and the thermal fields during a 90 s operation of the laser emitter with a pulse repetition rate of 10 Hz were calculated. The results indicate that the thermal lens in the active element has less optical power than under traditional liquid flow cooling. The experimental results verifying the calculations are provided herein. The laser efficiency in the single-pulse operating regime is close to 20% at an energy pulse of 70 mJ.