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 SE 4730 No. of Pages 1, Model 5+
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Highlights

Q4
A very simple design of TEM00 mode solar laser by a heliostat–parabolic mirror system.
8.5 W/m2 TEM00
mode 1064 nm solar laser collection efficiency is numerically calculated.
Laser beam brightness figure of merit is 4.3 times
higher than the previous record.

1
 SE 4730 No. of Pages 10, Model 5+
12 November 2015

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

1
ScienceDirect
Solar Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
www.elsevier.com/locate/solener

2 Solar-pumped TEM00 mode laser simple design with a grooved

3 Q1 Nd:YAG rod
4 Q2 Cláudia R. Vistas, Dawei Liang ⇑, Joana Almeida
5 CEFITEC, Departamento de Fı́sica, FCT, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, 2829-516, Campus de Caparica, Portugal
6 Received 28 June 2015; received in revised form 14 October 2015; accepted 27 October 2015
7

8 Communicated by: Associate Editor Antoine Bittar

10
9
11 Abstract

12 A simple high-brightness TEM00 mode solar laser design with a grooved Nd:YAG rod pumped through a heliostat–parabolic mirror
13 system is proposed here. A fused silica semi-cylindrical lens was combined with a 2V-shaped pumping cavity to provide efficient side-
14 pumping along the grooved 1.0 at.% Nd:YAG rod. Optimum pumping and laser beam parameters were found through ZEMAX and
15 LASCAD numerical analysis. The proposed scheme offered a circularly symmetric and uniform absorption profile. Maximum TEM00
16 mode solar laser power of 25.5 W was numerically achieved with a 3.5 mm diameter grooved rod, corresponding to 8.5 W/m2 collection
17 efficiency. 17.1 W laser beam brightness figure of merit was attained, being 4.3 times more than the previous record with TEM00 mode
18 Nd:YAG solar laser, and 10,000 times higher than last year’s result with a large grooved Nd:YAG rod. To validate the proposed pump-
19 ing scheme, a solar laser prototype was built and firstly tested with a small-scale heliostat–parabolic mirror system of Universidade
20 NOVA de Lisboa, producing 4.0 W continuous-wave TEM00 mode solar laser power at 3.6 W/m2 collection efficiency and 3.0 W laser
21 beam figure of merit.
22 Ó 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
23

24 Keywords: TEM00 mode; Solar-pumped laser; Grooved rod

25

26 1. Introduction tages (Graidon, 2007). This technology has a great Q5 37

potential for various applications, such as high- 38
27 The conversion of broad-band solar radiation into temperature materials processing, renewable magnesium– 39
28 coherent and narrow-band laser radiation has attracted hydrogen energy cycle (Yabe et al., 2006), free space laser 40
29 considerable attention in recent years. Solar laser, com- communications, space to earth power transmission 41
30 pared to electrically powered laser, benefits from simplicity (Rather et al., 1977; National Space Society, 2013). 42
31 and reliability because of the complete elimination of the Since the first solar-pumped Nd:YAG laser, reported by 43
32 electrical power generation and conditioning equipment. Young (1966), numerous pumping schemes have been pro- 44
33 The direct excitation of large lasers by sunlight also offers posed for improving solar laser performance (Arashi et al., 45
34 the prospect of a drastic reduction in the cost of coherent 1984; Weksler and Shwartz, 1988; Lando et al., 2003; 46
35 optical radiation for high average power applications, lead- Almeida et al., 2012, 2013, 2015; Liang et al., 2013, 2015; 47
36 ing to numerous environmental and economical advan- Liang and Almeida, 2013; Yabe et al., 2007; Dinh et al., 48
2012; Xu et al., 2014). Parabolic mirrors have long been 49
explored to achieve tight focusing of incoming solar radia- 50
Q3 ⇑ Corresponding author.
tion (Young, 1966; Arashi et al., 1984; Weksler and 51
E-mail address: dl@fct.unl.pt (D. Liang).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2015.10.049
0038-092X/Ó 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Please cite this article in press as: Vistas, C.R., et al. Solar-pumped TEM00 mode laser simple design with a grooved Nd:YAG rod. Sol. Energy
(2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2015.10.049
 SE 4730 No. of Pages 10, Model 5+
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2 C.R. Vistas et al. / Solar Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

52 Shwartz, 1988; Lando et al., 2003; Almeida et al., 2012, limited to only 4.4 W. To the best of our knowledge, there 108
53 2013, 2015; Liang et al., 2013, 2015). Nevertheless, most is strong need of a simple solar-powered laser that can 109
54 of the technologically significant effort has occurred during ensures both high laser output power and beam brightness. 110
55 the past eight years, after the adoption of Fresnel lenses as Nd:YAG has been the most commonly used laser mate- 111
56 primary solar concentrators (Yabe et al., 2007). Consider- rial because of its high quantum efficiency, good thermal 112
57 able solar laser collection efficiencies – ratio between laser conductivity and mechanical strength. Grooved Nd:YAG 113
58 output power and primary concentrator area – have been rods, compared with the common Nd:YAG rods, are more 114
59 achieved by end-pumping a Nd:YAG single-crystal rod attractive because of their larger interface with the cooling 115
60 through Fresnel lenses (Liang and Almeida, 2013; Yabe liquid that offers better heat dissipation and reduces ther- 116
61 et al., 2007; Dinh et al., 2012; Xu et al., 2014). Even mal lens effect, which in turn improves the laser efficiency 117
62 thought Fresnel lenses have been preferred due to its sim- and beam quality (Xu et al., 2014). Recently, a large 118
63 plicity, easy availability and low-cost, there still exists grooved Nd:YAG rod was applied in solar laser research 119
64 many practical inconveniences, regarding to their use in using Fresnel lenses and an end-pumping configuration 120
65 solar-pumped lasers. A solar laser head pumped by a typ- (Xu et al., 2014). The efficiency and beam quality were 121
66 ical Fresnel lens system moves together with the whole improved relatively to other polished and unpolished rods. 122
67 solar tracking structure (Liang and Almeida, 2013; Yabe However, the solar laser beam brightness figure of merit of 123
68 et al., 2007; Dinh et al., 2012; Xu et al., 2014); thus, an opti- 0.0017 W (Xu et al., 2014) was only 0.04% that of side- 124
69 cal fiber is required for the transportation of solar laser pumped non-grooved Nd:YAG rod (Liang et al., 2015). 125
70 radiation to a fixed target position, diminishing the effi- Thermal lensing effects caused by non-uniform distribution 126
71 ciency of the whole solar laser system because of optical of pump light, typical in end-pumping configurations, 127
72 fiber transmission loss. Fresnel lenses also cause the disper- might have contributed to the poor brightness obtained 128
73 sion of the solar radiation spectrum along its focal zone by Xu et al. (2014). 129
74 (Jing et al., 2014), impairing efficient light concentration Side-pumping configuration can present higher bright- 130
75 to the laser rod. The advantage of having a stationary laser ness as it allows a uniform absorption distribution along 131
76 head at the focus of a heliostat–primary concentrator sys- the rod axis and spreads the absorbed power within the 132
77 tem becomes much more pronounced for applications such laser medium, reducing the associated thermal loading 133
78 as material processing and laser beaming. We have, there- problems. Besides, the free access to both rod ends permits 134
79 fore, insisted on enhancing both the solar laser efficiency the optimization of more laser resonator parameters, 135
80 (Almeida et al., 2013, 2015) and beam brightness improving largely the laser beam quality and enabling the 136
81 (Almeida et al., 2012; Liang et al., 2013, 2015) with a helio- efficient extraction of solar laser in fundamental mode. 137
82 stat–parabolic mirror system from Procedes, Materiaux et For most laser applications, it is highly desirable to operate 138
83 Energie Solaire – Centre National de la Recherche Scien- a laser in the lowest-mode possible because of its smooth 139
84 tifique (PROMES-CNRS). intensity profile, very low divergence and ability to be 140
85 The key figure of merit for any laser is its brightness. It focused to a diffraction-limited spot. 141
86 is given by the laser power divided by the product of the To improve largely the present-day TEM00 mode solar 142
87 beam spot area and its solid angle divergence. This product laser power with the PROMES-CNRS heliostat–para- 143
88 is proportional to the square of beam quality factor M2. bolic mirror system, a simple side-pumping design with 144
89 Brightness figure of merit is thus defined as the ratio the grooved Nd:YAG rod is here proposed. The fused 145
90 between laser power and the product of Mx2 and My2 silica semi-cylindrical lens concentrates the solar radia- 146
91 (Lando et al., 2003). tion from the focal zone of a 2 m diameter parabolic 147
92 Recently, 56 W continuous-wave (cw) multimode solar mirror to the entrance aperture of the 2V-shaped pump 148
93 laser power was achieved by end-side-pumping a 5 mm cavity, within which the grooved 1.0 at.% Nd:YAG rod 149
94 diameter Nd:YAG rod, corresponding to 21.1 W/m2 was mounted. Optimum pumping conditions and solar 150
95 record-high solar laser collection efficiency with heliostat– laser beam parameters were found through ZEMAX 151
96 parabolic mirror. However, large beam quality factors of and LASCAD numerical analysis, respectively, for differ- 152
97 Mx2 = 44, My2 = 45 were reported leading to the laser beam ent grooved Nd:YAG rods diameters. Maximum TEM00 153
98 brightness figure of merit of only 0.028 W (Almeida et al., mode solar laser power of 25.5 W was numerically 154
99 2015). A significant progress in solar laser beam brightness achieved with a 3.5 mm diameter, 34 mm length grooved 155
100 with the heliostat–parabolic mirror system was recently rod, corresponding to 8.5 W/m2 TEM00 mode solar col- 156
101 reported (Liang et al., 2015). A remarkable 4.0 W laser lection efficiency. High laser beam brightness figure of 157
102 beam brightness figure of merit was attained with a 3 mm merit of 17.1 W was attained, being 4.3 times more than 158
103 diameter Nd:YAG rod within an asymmetric laser res- the previous record of TEM00 mode Nd:YAG solar laser 159
104 onator (Liang et al., 2015). This value was 2.1 times higher using the same PROMES-CNRS heliostat–parabolic mir- 160
105 than the previous record with Fresnel lens system (Liang ror system (Liang et al., 2015), and 10,000 times higher 161
106 and Almeida, 2013). However, the maximum output than that with grooved Nd:YAG rod pumped through 162
107 TEM00 mode solar laser power from this system was a Fresnel lens (Xu et al., 2014). 163

Please cite this article in press as: Vistas, C.R., et al. Solar-pumped TEM00 mode laser simple design with a grooved Nd:YAG rod. Sol. Energy
(2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2015.10.049
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C.R. Vistas et al. / Solar Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 3

164 2. Solar-pumped TEM00 mode Nd:YAG laser system (a) Concentrated

A B solar radiation C D
165 2.1. Solar energy collection and concentration by the
166 PROMES-CNRS heliostat–parabolic mirror system

167 A large plane mirror, composed of 36 small flat seg-

168 ments (0.5 m  0.5 m each) and mounted on a two-axis
169 heliostat, redirects the incoming solar radiation toward
170 the stationary primary concentrator with 2 m diameter,
Fused silica
171 60° rim angle and 850 mm focal length (Fig. 1a). All the aspheric lens
172 mirrors are back-surface silver coated. Because of iron
2V-shaped cavity
173 impurities within the glass substrates of plane and para- 20º
V2
174 bolic mirrors (with 5 mm and 10 mm thickness, respec- V1 Nd:YAG rod
175 tively), considerable absorption loss occurs when the 47.5º Cooling water
176 incoming solar radiation is redirected and focused by these
177 mirrors (Almeida et al., 2015). Only 59% total reflectivity (b)
178 was hence considered in our numerical calculations. Concentrated
179 For typical clear sunny days with an average solar irra- solar radiation
180 diance of 1000 W/m2 in Odeillo (France) about 1.6 kW
181 solar power can be focused into a near-Gaussian light spot
182 (Fig. 1b) with 10 mm full width at half maximum
183 (FWHM), reaching a peak flux of 15 W/mm2.
V2
L1 V1 L2 Laser
184 2.2. Simple Nd:YAG solar laser head HR PR emission
Grooved 2V-shaped Cooling
Nd:YAG rod cavity water
185 The solar laser head is only composed of a fused silica
186 lens with semi-cylindrical shape and a 2V-shaped pumping
187 cavity within which the grooved Nd:YAG single-crystal
188 rod is efficiently pumped (Fig. 2). The laser rod is cooled LR
189 by water along 28 mm of its longitudinal surface. The
190 remaining 8 mm (4 mm on each side) length is used for Fig. 2. Front-view (a) and side-view (b) of the simple solar laser head
design. The 2V-shaped cavity is composed of a V-shaped reflector V1 and
191 mechanical fixation. two upper planar reflectors V2. L1 and L2 represent the separation length
192 The fused silica semi-cylindrical lens both collects and of the high reflection (HR) mirror and partial reflection (PR) mirror,
193 concentrates the solar radiation along the laser rod. Fused respectively, to their nearest end face of the laser rod with length LR. The
194 silica is an ideal optical material for Nd:YAG laser pump- grooved Nd:YAG laser rod is shown in the inset photograph.
195 ing since it is transparent over the Nd:YAG absorption
196 spectrum. Moreover, it has a low coefficient of thermal
197 expansion and it is resistant to scratching and thermal curvature, 35 mm length, 34 mm width, and 3.8 mm sepa- 201

198 shock. High optical quality fused silica concentrators ration between its output end and the laser rod optical axis. 202

199 (99.999%) can be manufactured by optical machining and The two-dimensional 2V-shaped cavity (Fig. 2) has an 203

200 polishing. The semi-cylindrical lens has 20 mm radius of entrance aperture of 9 mm  22 mm and 7.8 mm depth. 204

(a) (b)
Solar radiation
Solar energy
Primary flux (W/mm2)
concentrator
12 − 15

9 − 12
Laser
head
6−9

3−6

0−3
-10 10
-5 5
0 0
Heliostat 5 -5
X (mm) Y (mm)
Positioning system 10 -10

Fig. 1. (a) Scheme of the PROMES-CNRS solar energy collection and concentration system. (b) Simulated 3D flux distribution at the focus of the
PROMES-CNRS 2 m diameter parabolic mirror.

Please cite this article in press as: Vistas, C.R., et al. Solar-pumped TEM00 mode laser simple design with a grooved Nd:YAG rod. Sol. Energy
(2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2015.10.049
 SE 4730 No. of Pages 10, Model 5+
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4 C.R. Vistas et al. / Solar Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

205 The inner wall of the pumping cavity is considered to have the peak wavelengths k and their respective absorption 251
206 94% reflectivity. The 2V-shaped cavity is composed of a coefficients a are listed in Table 1 and were added to the 252
207 V-shaped reflector V1, with 47.5° half-angle, and two upper glass catalogue for Nd:YAG material in ZEMAX soft- 253
208 planar reflectors V2, with 20° half-angle relatively to V1. ware. Solar irradiance values for the 22 absorption peaks 254
209 This combination is much more effective in coupling highly could be consulted from the standard solar spectra for 255
210 concentrated light rays with different incidence angles into AM1.5 and saved as source wavelength data. In ray- 256
211 the laser rod as compared to a single V-shaped reflector. As tracing, the laser rod was divided into a total of 18,000 257
212 shown in Fig. 2a, ray A hits V2 and is reflected toward the zones. The path length in each zone was found. With this 258
213 laser rod; ray B passes through the rod once and is bounced value and the effective absorption coefficient of 1.0% Nd: 259
214 back by V1, so that double-pass absorption is accom- YAG material, the absorbed power within the laser med- 260
215 plished; ray C hits the upper sidewall of V2, being reflected ium was calculated by summing up the absorbed pump 261
216 down toward V1, and then redirected to the laser rod; ray radiation of all zones. The 1.0 at.% Nd:YAG grooved 262
217 D is also reflected by V1, making one passage through rod (inset of Fig. 2b), with grooved pitch of 0.6 mm and 263
218 the laser rod. grooved depth of 0.1 mm, was supplied by Chengdu Dong- 264
219 In ray-tracing, 95% of the pump rays entering the 2V jun Laser Co., Ltd. Both end faces of the rod are anti- 265
220 cavity hit the laser rod. 47%, 33% and 12% of which pass reflection (AR) coated for the laser emission wavelength 266
221 through the rod once, twice, and three times, respectively. (R < 0.2% @ 1064 nm). 267
222 The remaining 8% can pass four times or more. The
223 grooves on the surface of the laser rod play also an impor- 3.2. Numerical analysis of the absorbed pump flux 268
224 tant role in trapping some incident pump rays, enabling distribution 269
225 multipass pumping through the laser rod. A uniform
226 absorbed pump profile can hence be obtained, as it will At high average output power even a uniform gain dis- 270
227 be shown in Section 3.2. tribution in a water-cooled laser rod has been shown to 271
induce a radially dependent refractive power of the thermal 272
228 3. Numerical analysis of the grooved Nd:YAG solar laser lens, which has a maximum on the rod axis (Hodgson and 273
229 performance Weber, 1993). When the absorption profile is centrally 274
peaked, the temperature on the axis increases further, 275
230 3.1. Optical design parameters of the solar laser system resulting in stronger thermal lensing at the center, higher- 276
order aberrations at the periphery, and larger stress in 277
231 All the design parameters of the proposed solar pump- the laser rod compared with those of uniform excitation 278
232 ing approach were optimized through ZEMAX non- (Brand, 1995). Consequently, to scale our solar-pumped 279
233 sequential ray-tracing software to obtain the most favor- rod laser to high TEM00 mode average power, it is very 280
234 able absorbed pump flux distribution within the grooved important to achieve the circularly symmetric and uniform 281
235 Nd:YAG rod. pump power deposition within the laser rod, as shown in 282
236 The standard solar spectrum for one-and-a-half air mass Fig. 3 for 3.5 mm diameter grooved laser rod. 283
237 (AM1.5) (ASTM Standard G173-03, 2012) was used as the
238 reference data for consulting the spectral irradiance 3.3. Numerical analysis of multimode solar laser operation 284
239 (W/m2/nm) at each wavelength. The terrestrial solar irradi-
240 ance of 1000 W/m2 in Odeillo, France, was considered in The absorbed pump flux data from the ZEMAX analy- 285
241 ZEMAX software. The effective pump power of the light sis was processed by LASCAD software to study the laser 286
242 source took into account the 16% overlap between the beam parameters of grooved Nd:YAG rods. The stimu- 287
243 absorption spectrum of the Nd:YAG medium and the solar lated emission cross-section of 2.8  1019 cm1, the fluo- 288
244 spectrum (Zhao et al., 2007). The half-angle of 0.27° sub- rescence life time of 230 ls (Koechner, 1999) and a 289
245 tended by the sun was also considered in the analysis. typical absorption and scattering loss a = 0.003 cm1 for 290
246 The absorption spectrum of fused silica and water materi- the 1.0 at.% Nd:YAG medium were adopted. An averaged 291
247 als were included in ZEMAX numerical data to account solar pump wavelength of 660 nm was also considered 292
248 for absorption losses. (Arashi et al., 1984). In LASCAD analysis, the optical res- 293
249 For 1.0% Nd:YAG laser medium, 22 peak absorption onator was comprised of two opposing parallel mirrors at 294
250 wavelengths were defined in ZEMAX numerical data. All right angles to the axis of the laser medium. The end mirror 295

Table 1
Absorption coefficients a of the peak absorption wavelengths k of 1.0 at.% Nd:YAG single-crystal material.
k (nm) 527 531 568 578 586 592 732 736 743 746 753
a (cm1) 1.43 1.35 2.41 0.94 5.88 1.43 1.43 2.41 1.83 6.21 3.73
k (nm) 758 790 793 803 805 808 811 815 820 865 880
a (cm1) 3.24 1.05 2.88 3.22 2.81 6.91 4.27 1.39 1.90 1.43 0.92

Please cite this article in press as: Vistas, C.R., et al. Solar-pumped TEM00 mode laser simple design with a grooved Nd:YAG rod. Sol. Energy
(2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2015.10.049
 SE 4730 No. of Pages 10, Model 5+
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C.R. Vistas et al. / Solar Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 5

0 W/mm2
1.53

3.5 mm
0.00

0
2
3.5 mm

2
W/mm2
0
1.53
3.5 mm

0.00
34 mm

Fig. 3. Absorbed pump flux distribution along the central (up) and longitudinal (down) cross sections of the 3.5 mm diameter grooved rod.

296 was high reflection coated (HR, 99.98%). The output cou- 48

Multimode laser power (W)

297 pler was partial reflection coated (PR) with the reflectivity 46
298 variable between 85% and 99%, according to different laser 44
299 rod diameter. The sum of absorption, scattering, and 42
300 diffraction losses for laser emission wavelength within the 40
301 active medium constitutes the most important part of 38
302 round-trip resonant cavity losses. Imperfect HR and AR 36
303 coating losses of both laser medium and resonator cavity 34
304 mirrors are also an important portion of the round-trip 32
305 losses. For 1.0 at.% Nd:YAG rod of length LR = 3.4 cm 30
306 (Fig. 2), the amount of absorption and scattering losses is 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0
307 2aLR = 2.04%. Assuming 0.4% of imperfect HR and AR Rod diameter (mm)
308 coating loss, the round-trip losses increase to 2.44%. The
Fig. 4. Numerically calculated multimode solar laser power as a function
309 diffraction losses depend on rod diameter, resonator length of the grooved Nd:YAG rod diameter.
310 and radius of curvature (RoC) of the resonator mirrors.
311 Usually the diffraction losses of a large diameter rod within
312 a short resonator are very small, even with large concave value is 276 times more than that of the most efficient mul- 332
313 RoC end mirrors. timode solar laser with grooved Nd:YAG rod (Xu et al., 333
314 In LASCAD analysis, for multimode laser oscillation, a 2014). Yet, it is still far from the record brightness figure 334
315 symmetric optical resonator with 5 m of radius of curva- of merit attained with TEM00 solar laser with the same 335
316 ture (RoC) end mirrors and total length LT = L1 + L2 + PROMES-CNRS system (Liang et al., 2015). The solar 336
317 LR = 234 mm was used, where L1 and L2 represent the sep- laser beam brightness figure of merit can be further boosted 337
318 aration length of the HR and PR mirrors, respectively, to by the appropriate choice of laser rod diameter and 338
319 their nearest end face of the laser rod with length resonator configuration that offers a good spatial overlap 339
320 LR = 34 mm (Fig. 2b). For example, for a 5.0 mm diameter between the pump mode volume and the 1064 nm 340
321 Nd:YAG grooved rod, pumped within this short resonator, TEM00 laser oscillation mode volume, as analyzed in 341
322 the LASCAD beam propagation method (BPM) gave only Section 3.4. 342
323 0.03% diffraction loss, resulting in a total round-trip loss of
324 2.47% for calculating the multimode solar laser power 3.4. Numerical analysis of TEM00 solar laser operation 343
325 (Fig. 4).
326 Maximum multimode laser power of 47 W was then An asymmetric optical resonator is an excellent configu- 344
327 numerically achieved for the 5.0 mm diameter grooved ration for achieving large spatial overlap between the 345
328 rod, resulting in high collection efficiency of 15.7 W/m2 fundamental mode volume and pump volume, improving 346
329 for side-pumping configuration. M 2x ¼ 9:97, M 2y ¼ 9:93 thus the laser beam quality (Liang and Almeida, 2013). 347
330 beam quality factors were numerically found in this case, For efficient extraction of TEM00 mode solar laser 348
331 leading to the brightness figure of merit of 0.47 W. This power from the available absorbed solar pump power 349

Please cite this article in press as: Vistas, C.R., et al. Solar-pumped TEM00 mode laser simple design with a grooved Nd:YAG rod. Sol. Energy
(2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2015.10.049
 SE 4730 No. of Pages 10, Model 5+
12 November 2015

6 C.R. Vistas et al. / Solar Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

350 within the rod, large RoC = 5 m end mirrors were 2.2
351 adopted. L2 was fixed at 100 mm while L1 varied between
2.0
352 250 mm and 520 mm according to different rod diameter

M2 factors at X, Y
353 (Fig. 5). 1.8 MY 2
MX 2
354 Grooved Nd:YAG rods with different diameters were
355 studied to find the optimum TEM00 mode laser beam 1.6

356 parameters (Figs. 6–8). The laser rod diameter plays a cru- 1.4
357 cial role on the beam quality factors and, consequently, on
358 the extraction of TEM00 laser power. Since the laser rod 1.2
359 acts as an aperture, high-order resonator modes can be
1.0
360 easily suppressed with small diameter rod due to large 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0
361 diffraction losses, improving thus the beam quality. The Rod diameter (mm)
362 2.5 mm diameter rod, pumped within the asymmetric res-
Fig. 6. Beam quality parameters M2 as a function of the grooved
363 onator with L1 = 254 mm, presented the best beam quality
Nd:YAG rod diameter.
364 factors, Mx2 = 1.06, My2 = 1.06 (Fig. 6). In this case, LAS-
365 CAD BPM analysis gave a very large diffraction loss of
366 4%. The total round-trip loss of 2.44% + 4% = 6.44% was 26

TEM00 mode laser power (W)

367 hence calculated, resulting in low TEM00 mode solar laser 24
368 power of 18 W (Fig. 7). Asymmetries in X-axis and Y-axis 22
369 spot sizes increased as larger diameter rods were pumped,
20
370 giving rise to discrepancies in Mx2, My2 factors, as shown
371 in Fig. 6. Although slightly larger Mx2 = 1.1, My2 = 1.2 fac- 18

372 tors were numerically attained through the 3.0 mm diame- 16

373 ter rod, 3.94% round-trip loss was calculated, resulting in 14
374 higher TEM00 mode laser power of 23.3 W (Fig. 7). Maxi- 12
375 mum brightness figure of merit of 17.7 W was numerically
10
376 achieved in this case (Fig. 8). 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0
377 The 3.5 mm diameter grooved rod provides the highest Rod diameter (mm)
378 TEM00 mode laser power extraction of 25.5 W, corre-
379 sponding to 8.5 W/m2 TEM00 mode collection efficiency. Fig. 7. Numerically calculated TEM00 solar laser power as a function of
the grooved Nd:YAG rod diameter.
380 Low Mx2 = 1.1, My2 = 1.3 factors were obtained, resulting
381 also in an excellent brightness figure of merit of 17.1 W.
382 This value is 4.3 times higher than the previous record of
383 TEM00 mode Nd:YAG solar laser (Liang et al., 2015), The thermal lens effect is a serious issue in Nd:YAG 392
384 and 10,000 times more than the solar laser using grooved solar laser systems; small diameter grooved Nd:YAG rods 393
385 Nd:YAG rod (Xu et al., 2014). can minimize considerably this problem. The grooved sur- 394
386 The TEM00 mode laser beam pattern attained with the face offers a large interface with cooling liquid, and hence 395
387 3.5 mm diameter grooved rod, within the asymmetric res- better heat dissipation, reducing the thermal lensing effect 396
388 onator with L1 = 338 mm and L2 = 100 mm, is shown in and improving the laser beam quality. Moreover, the large 397
389 Fig. 9. It has a near diffraction-limited Gaussian distribu- surface area to volume ratio enables more pumping light 398
390 tion with spot size 1/e2 width (x) of approximately entry that is uniformly distributed within the rod (Fig. 3), 399
391 2.0 mm on the output mirror. which in turn improves the efficiency of solar laser. 400

HR mirror Nd:YAG rod PR mirror

X-axis

L1 variable LR L2
34 mm 100 mm
Y-axis

Fig. 5. Asymmetric laser resonant cavity for the efficient production of fundamental mode solar laser power. L1 and L2 represent the separation length of
the high reflection (HR) mirror and partial reflection (PR) mirror, respectively, to the end face of the laser rod with length LR.

Please cite this article in press as: Vistas, C.R., et al. Solar-pumped TEM00 mode laser simple design with a grooved Nd:YAG rod. Sol. Energy
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Brightness figure of merit (W) 18 HR

16 mirror NOVA
14 Parabolic mirror
12
10
L1
8
PR
6
mirror
4 L2
2
0
2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0
Multi-angle Laser
Rod diameter (mm) vice emission

Fig. 8. Brightness figure of merit as a function of the grooved Nd:YAG

Fig. 10. The Nd:YAG solar laser head, positioned at the focus of the
rod diameter.
Universidade Nova de Lisboa (NOVA) parabolic mirror. L1 and L2
represent the separation length of the high reflection (HR) mirror and
partial reflection (PR) mirror, respectively, to their nearest end faces of the
laser rod.
(a) (b)

Y-axis
medium. The rear mirror was high reflection coated (HR, 424
99.8%), while the output mirror was partial reflection 425
coated (PR, 94%). 426
X-axis
For TEM00 mode operation, the HR and PR mirrors 427
were placed at L1 = 512 mm and L2 = 90 mm, respectively. 428
ω ≈ 2.0 mm
Since the laser worked closer to the limit of thermally 429
X-axis
Y-axis stable zone, as illustrated in Fig. 5, a shutter was used to 430
control laser power fluctuations. After considering all the 431
shading effects in the primary concentrator (the space 432
Fig. 9. Numerically simulated 3-D (a) and 2-D (b) TEM00 laser beam between the heliostat mirrors, the shutter, the X–Y–Z axis 433
pattern on the output mirror of the asymmetric laser resonator with positioning system, the laser resonant cavity and its 434
RoC = 5 m for the 3.5 mm diameter grooved rod. x, spot size 1/e2
width.
mechanical fixation), an effective collection area of 1.1 m2 435
was determined. For 900 W/m2 solar irradiance in Lisbon 436
area, in August 2015, the heliostat parabolic mirror system 437
401 4. Preliminary experimental results with the small-scale collected about 730 W solar power to its focal zone. 438
402 heliostat–parabolic mirror system of Universidade Nova de A CINOGY UV-NIR beam profiler – CinCam CMOS 439
403 Lisboa monitored the laser beam profile during the experiments. 440
The input and output laser powers were measured with a 441
404 To validate the proposed solar-pumping approach, a Molectron PowerMax 500D and a Thorlabs PM1100D 442
405 solar laser prototype (Fig. 10) was built and tested in power meters, respectively. 2D and 3D profiles of the mea- 443
406 NOVA heliostat–parabolic mirror system, during the per- sured laser beam pattern, 1.7 m from the output coupler, 444
407 iod of August, 2015. Analogously to Fig. 1a, a large plane are shown in Fig. 11. 445
408 mirror (composed of 4 flat segments), mounted on a two- 4 W TEM00-mode laser power was measured in this 446
409 axis heliostat, redirects the incoming solar radiation case. 3.6 W/m2 collection efficiency was hence calculated, 447
410 toward the stationary parabolic mirror with 1.5 m diame- being 1.9 times and 1.2 times more than the previous record 448
411 ter, 60° rim angle and 660 mm focal length. The solar laser for TEM00 mode Nd:YAG solar laser using heliostat–para- 449
412 head consisted of a fused silica tube lens, a 2V-shaped bolic mirror (Liang et al., 2015) and Fresnel lens (Liang 450
413 pumping cavity, and the 4.0 mm diameter 34 mm length and Almeida, 2013) systems, respectively. A close examina- 451
414 grooved Nd:YAG rod (Fig. 2b). The laser rod was fixed tion of the TEM00-mode profile shows that it differs slightly 452
415 by two rod holders within the tube channel, where it was in laser beam diameters at 1/e2 along both X and Y axis. 453
416 cooled by distilled water at 6 L/min flow rate. Mx2  1.2, My2  1.1 factors were determined, resulting in 454
417 The laser head was mechanically mounted to a laser res- brightness figure of merit of 3.0 W. 455
418 onant cavity, which was fixed on an X–Y–Z axis mechani- Numerical analysis of the Nd:YAG solar laser perfor- 456
419 cal support by using a multi-angle vice, ensuring an mance was carried out by using both the solar input 457
420 accurate optical alignment in the focal zone, as shown in parameters of the NOVA heliostat–parabolic mirror sys- 458
421 Fig. 10. The optical resonant cavity was comprised of tem and laser resonator parameters. 3.97 W TEM00-mode 459
422 two opposing parallel mirrors, both with 5 m radius of solar power and brightness figure of merit of 3.14 W were 460
423 curvature (RoC), at right angles to the axis of the laser numerically achieved in this case, which agreed well with 461

Please cite this article in press as: Vistas, C.R., et al. Solar-pumped TEM00 mode laser simple design with a grooved Nd:YAG rod. Sol. Energy
(2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2015.10.049
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8 C.R. Vistas et al. / Solar Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

2D

3.5 mm

3.3 mm

ω = 3.4 mm

Fig. 11. Measured TEM00-mode output laser beam 2D and 3D profiles (1.7 m away from the output coupler).

of different diameters were studied to find the optimum 474

18
17.1W
TEM00 PROMES 1600W, Numerical laser beam parameters. In one hand, high order mode laser 475
16 TEM00 NOVA 730W, Experimental power of 47 W was numerically attained for the 5.0 mm 476
Brightness figure of merit (W)

14 TEM00 NOVA 730W Numerical

diameter grooved rod, within a symmetric laser resonant 477
cavity, leading to high collection efficiency of 15.7 W/m2. 478
12 TEM00 PROMES 1120W 2015 [12]
On the other hand, maximum TEM00 mode laser power 479
10 M-M PROMES 1525W, 2015 [13] of 25.5 W was numerically achieved for the 3.5 mm diame- 480
8 M-M PROMES 1680W, 2013 [9] ter grooved rod pumped within an asymmetric resonator, 481

6 M-M PROMES 1730W, 2013 [10]

resulting in record TEM00 mode solar laser collection effi- 482
4.0W
ciency of 8.5 W/m2. Nearly symmetric beam quality factors 483
4 M-M PROMES 1800W, 2012 [8]
3.14W Mx2 = 1.1, My2 = 1.3 were numerically found, resulting in 484
2 3.0W 17.1 W high solar laser beam brightness figure of merit. 485
0.29W 0.044W 0.09W 0.028W
0 This value represents an enhancement of 430% over the 486
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 previous record of TEM00 mode Nd:YAG solar laser by 487
Solar laser power (W) the same PROMES-CNRS system (Liang et al., 2013). Cir- 488
cularly symmetric and uniform pump absorption distribu- 489
Fig. 12. Performance of solar-pumped lasers using the PROMES-CNRS tion was indispensable for achieving the highest TEM00 490
and the NOVA heliostat–parabolic mirror systems. The legend indicates
the laser mode (TEM00, single mode; M-M, multimode), the solar facility
mode solar power. To validate the proposed approach, a 491
(either from the PROMES or the NOVA), the input power at the focus, solar laser prototype was built and firstly tested in the 492
year and reference of publication. The green diamond data represents the NOVA heliostat–parabolic mirror facility. 4.0 W 493
present numerical results with PROMES-CNRS solar facility. The light TEM00-mode (Mx2  1.2, My2  1.1) laser power was mea- 494
blue and dark blue diamond data represent the present numerical and sured, resulting in 3.0 W brightness figure of merit and 495
experimental results, respectively, with the NOVA solar facility. (For
interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is
3.6 W/m2 collection efficiency. The numerical and experi- 496
referred to the web version of this article.) mental results of the NOVA solar laser system are in very 497
good agreement, thereby ensuring the achievement of high 498
solar laser brightness figure of merit of 17.1 W with 2.2 499
462 the experimental data. Both numerical and experimental times more solar pump power at the focus of the 500
463 results are listed in Fig. 12. PROMES-CNRS solar mirror in the future. 501
A summary of previous published results on solar- 502
464 5. Conclusions pumped lasers by using the same PROMES-CNRS helio- 503
stat–parabolic mirror system is shown in Fig. 12. The solar 504
465 A simple solar laser pumping approach was presented in laser approach presented here is very valuable for achieving 505
466 this paper to improve the laser beam brightness with helio- both high output power and beam brightness, when com- 506
467 stat–parabolic mirror system. The radiation coupling pared to our previous works (Fig. 12). 507
468 capacity of the semi-cylindrical lens was combined with
469 the multipass pumping ability of the 2V-shaped cavity to Acknowledgements 508
470 provide efficient side-pumping along the small-diameter
471 grooved Nd:YAG single-crystal rod. Optimum pumping This work was funded by Science and Technology 509
472 and laser beam parameters were found through ZEMAX Foundation of Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology 510
473 and LASCAD numerical analysis. Grooved Nd:YAG rods and Higher Education (FCT-MCTES) through research 511

Please cite this article in press as: Vistas, C.R., et al. Solar-pumped TEM00 mode laser simple design with a grooved Nd:YAG rod. Sol. Energy
(2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2015.10.049
 SE 4730 No. of Pages 10, Model 5+
12 November 2015

C.R. Vistas et al. / Solar Energy xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 9

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Please cite this article in press as: Vistas, C.R., et al. Solar-pumped TEM00 mode laser simple design with a grooved Nd:YAG rod. Sol. Energy
(2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.solener.2015.10.049