A study of pump power absorption efficiency of a diode side-pumped thin disk laser

A method computing the absorption efficiency with the difference between pump power entering the thin disk and pump power transmitted through the disk is introduced. Compared with directly computing the absorbed power, the method presented here needs much less computation to achieve the same accuracy, making it possible to compare much more absorption efficiency values at higher accuracy with a few parameters varied within certain ranges. Nonabsorption loss values were calculated with absorption coefficient, array distance and round disk radius varied within certain ranges. Results of calculation showed that the nonabsorption loss generally increases with increasing array distance, decreases with increasing round disk radius and decreases with increasing absorption coefficient. The method introduced by this paper presents a theoretical reference for the optimal design of thin disk lasers.