Thermally induced depolarization in terbium gallium garnet ceramics rod with natural convection cooling

Thermal birefringence–induced depolarization in terbium gallium garnet (TGG) ceramic rods has been numerically evaluated for the geometry and heating conditions in a previous experiment. In this model, the spatially resolved heat transfer coefficient corresponding to natural convection cooling and the offset of the beam from the rotational axis of the rod have been incorporated and the realistic beam profile used in the experiment has been considered. A resulting beam depolarization ratio of 4.3 × 10⁻⁴ has been calculated for an input power of 117 W. The results were found to be in good agreement with the measured values. Furthermore, a parametric study of the depolarization ratio for higher input powers has been performed leading to a depolarization ratio of 3.3 × 10⁻² for 1 kW input power. (paper)