Influence of saturation of diode pump radiation absorption in YAG:Yb⁺³ crystal on parameters of planar waveguide lasers

A method has been devised for calculating the energy parameters of generation of planar YAG:Yb³⁺ lasers, with regard to saturation of the absorption of pump diode laser radiation with a wavelength λ   =  940 nm. It has been shown that nonlinearity of the pump absorption coefficient can substantially reduce the small-signal gain at the transition with a wavelength λ   =  1030 nm. It has been found that pump saturation influence on the energy efficiency of planar lasers and power amplifiers is considerably weakened in the field of intense laser radiation. (paper)