Dynamic multimode analysis of high-power 3-level lasers

We present a comprehensive simulation model for high-power 3-level lasers based on a “Dynamic Multimode Analysis” (DMA) [1], . DMA has proven to be a powerful tool to analyze mode competition depending on thermal, spatial, and dynamic effects in the laser resonator and to predict power output, beam quality, and pulse profile for 4-level lasers with M2<20 in both q-switched an cw operation. In this work, we generalize the DMA model to 3-level gain media by taking into account the temperature dependence of emission and absorption cross-sections and to highly multimode lasers using generalized mode structures instead of eigenmodes [2].