Investigation into first and second law efficiencies of solid state laser head: A case study

The efficiency of a solid state pulsed laser is very low which is generally ascribed to the poor optical and electrical efficiencies of the components used in the laser head. The temperature of the laser rod rises during the optical pumping process which causes thermally induced distortions in the laser output beam and hence a low quality laser beam is obtained. In the present study, the temperature rise in the laser rod during the pulsed optical pumping process is investigated, and the first and second law efficiencies relevant to the laser head are calculated. The radial temperature profiles are predicted for different optical pumping repetition rates. The energy dissipation chart during the lasing process in the laser head is developed. The first and second law efficiencies of the laser head and the laser rod are computed for different repetition rates of the optical pumping process.