INTRACAVITY DOUBLING OF CW DIODE-PUMPED ND-YAG LASERS WITH KTP

Intracavity-doubled lasers exhibit amplitude fluctuations driven by a combination of two nonlinearities: sum generation and spatial hole burning. Optimizing the cavity polarizations to minimize sum generation does not consistently eliminate the oscillations. Elimination of spatial hole burning prevents oscillations over a much larger range of operating conditions. The system is still bistable however, and can suffer abrupt changes in power due to mode hops. This can be eliminated with an etalon or other wavelength selective element.