Seven-Rod Pumping Concept for Highly Stable Solar Laser Emission

A seven-rod solar laser head was conceptualized and numerically studied to improve the tracking error compensation capacity and power stability in end-side-pumping schemes. It was composed of a first-stage heliostat–parabolic mirror system, a second-stage fused silica aspheric lens and a third-stage conical pumping cavity, within which seven Nd:YAG rods were mounted. Highly stable solar laser emission, with a power loss inferior to 5% for tracking errors up to ±0.4°, could potentially be enabled with seven 4 mm diameter, 13 mm length rods. The tracking error width at 10% laser power loss was about 1.0°, which is 1.65 times higher than the experimental record, attained by a dual-rod side-pumping prototype. Furthermore, a total multimode laser power of about 41.2 W could also be achieved, corresponding to 23.3 W/m2 collection and 2.5% solar-to-laser power conversion efficiencies, which are 1.65 and 1.36 times higher than those obtained with the dual-rod side-pumping prototype. They are also 1.27 and 1.12 times higher than the multirod experimental records in multimode regime for the same rod material.