3-D numerical simulation of Yb:YAG active slabs with longitudinal doping gradient for thermal load effects assessment.

We present a study of Yb:YAG active media slabs, based on a ceramic layered structure with different doping levels. We developed a procedure allowing 3D numerical analysis of the slab optical properties as a consequence of the thermal load induced by the pump process. The simulations are compared with a set of experimental results in order to validate the procedure. These structured ceramics appear promising in appropriate geometrical configurations, and thus are intended to be applied in the construction of High Energy Diode Pumped Solid State Laser (DPSSL) systems working in high repetition-rate pulsed regimes.

Identifying physical properties of a CO2 laser by dynamical modeling of measured time series.

We estimate internal parameters of a Q-switched CO2 laser by fitting trajectories of the four-level model to measured scalar time series. The four-level model is a five-dimensional nonlinear system of ordinary differential equations. A multiple shooting technique is used to construct the unobserved time courses of the population densities and to reveal the dependence of the parameters on the excitation current. For excitations barely above the laser threshold large pulse variations are identified as an effect of small variations of the pump parameter.

Polarization state modifications in the propagation of high azimuthal order annular beams.

Using a vector Fresnel diffraction propagator we investigate the far-field distributions obtained from guided annular modes with different polarization states. Furthermore we demonstrate that a pure azimuthal polarization transforms into a mainly radial one in the propagation of annular beams with azimuthal mode number higher than 0. This property could enhance the performance of a laser metal-cutting system based on these kind of beams.

Stabilization of unstable fixed points in the dynamics of a laser with feedback.

We report theoretical and experimental results on the stabilization of unstable steady states in a CO2 laser with feedback. Periodic and chaotic oscillations have been suppressed by means of a control loop consisting of a high-pass filter, known as washout filter. Although the filter characteristics are determined on the basis of linear analysis, taking into account the problem of robustness with respect to parameter changes, the present control strategy provides a large attractive domain in the phase space.

Extraction of high-quality beams from narrow annular laser sources.

We have analyzed the propagation properties of the field produced by circular arrays of coherent optical sources, obtaining the conditions for the generation of good-quality global beams. Such conditions can be obtained by the use of resonators based on the Talbot effect. This appears to be a practical method for the construction of simple, low-cost resonators for compact diffusion-cooled high-power lasers with annular format. Low-loss annular Talbot cavity configurations have also been studied.

CO(2) laser with modulated losses: Theoretical models and experiments in the chaotic regime.

We compare two different theoretical models for a CO(2) laser, namely, the two- and four-level model, and show that the second one traces with much better accuracy the experimentally observed chaotic dynamics when the cavity losses are sinusoidally modulated. Even though the two-level model provides a qualitative explanation of the chaotic dynamics, only the four-level one assures a quantitative fitting. We also show that, at the onset of chaos, the chaotic dynamics is low dimensional and can be described in terms of a noninvertible one-dimensional map.