A simple method for automatic cavity alignment of a solid-state laser

Misalignment of a laser cavity would result in the displacement of beam location on the cavity mirrors. We present a simple method for automatic cavity alignment of a solid-state laser through detecting the location of the laser beam on the rear mirror, with which neither external alignment beams nor modifications to the cavity are required. The rear mirror of the laser cavity is replaced by a tip/tilt mirror to compensate for the misalignment. Experiments show that this method could effectively correct the misalignment of the laser cavity and restore the output power to almost the original value when the resonator is well aligned.