Simple method to analyze thermal effects of high-power solid state lasers

Thermal conductivity and expansion coefficient of YAG laser crystals vary greatly with temperature. In order to obtain an accurate solution, finite element analysis is employed to solve the heat equation. By comparing the finite element analysis with the conventional analytical analysis, we found the temperature difference between finite element analysis and conventional analytical analysis is small and the conventional analytical solution for temperature is still available; the stress difference between finite element analysis and conventional analytical analysis is large, so we need treat the thermal conductivity and the expansion coefficient as non-constants when calculating the stresses in laser rods.