An alternative approach to determine the fractional heat load in solid state laser materials: application to diode-pumped Nd:YVO4 laser

A simple approach is described and used for on-line measurement of the fractional heat-load parameter ξ in an operating diode-pumped Nd:YVO₄ laser at 1.06 μm wavelength for different doping concentrations. The method is based on the fact that if the thermo-optical properties of the sample are known then the ξ-parameter can be estimated from the measured effective focal length induced by the pump beam and any other lensing effect due to mechanical mounting of the sample for a given pumping configuration. The value of the fractional heat-load parameter estimated by our technique was in excellent agreement with the earlier reported values.