Transient pump-probe analysis of pump-induced lensing in laser amplifiers.

Understanding of pump-induced lensing in laser amplifiers is essential for the optimized design of high-power lasers with high spatial quality, but there is usually incomplete knowledge of the interplay between thermal and population induced lensing mechanisms, lensing under lasing and non-lasing conditions, and transient lensing effects under pulsed operation. This paper provides quantitative insight of pump-induced lensing effects by using experimental transient pump-probe measurements in an alexandrite laser amplifier end-pumped by a short pulse pump beam with Gaussian spatial intensity distribution. Lensing results are presented showing a large difference in lensing under both non-lasing and lasing conditions and distinction of the population lens and thermal lens contributions from their different response time. Different pump beam sizes are used to show the variation of the relative strength of the lensing mechanisms. Comparison of experimental results with the analytical transient theory developed in this paper for the Gaussian pump beam gives excellent agreement and quantitative information on the thermal and population contributions to the amplifier lens. This paper provides a methodology for quantitative investigation of pump-induced lensing in general laser amplifier systems, and potentially other classes of optical materials with residual optical absorption.