DESIGN OF EFFICIENT LENS DUCTS

Lens ducts have the potential to couple the output from a laser diode array efficiently into the gain medium of a solid-state laser in an en d-pumped configuration. Using a ray-tracing method we investigate diff erent design approaches of lens ducts and demonstrate the possibility to obtain an output beam with a symmetric profile that is insensitive to the small displacement from the output surface of a lens duct. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.