The effect of temperature on absorption in end-pumped Yb:YAG thin disk lasers

In this paper, the dependence of the absorbed power on the temperature in an end-pumped CW quasi-three-level Yb:YAG thin disk laser is calculated. Here, we have used the temperature-dependent form of the Boltzmann occupation factors, absorption cross-section and thermal conductivity of the Yb:YAG crystal. A Monte Carlo ray tracing code and a 2D finite element analysis (FEA) with the ANSYS package have been used to calculate the absorbed power and the temperature distribution inside the Yb:YAG thin disk laser, respectively. According to the model, the temperature-dependent absorbed power turns out to be 18% less than the temperature-independent absorbed power in the top center of the Yb:YAG thin disk laser for used parameters.