摘要 |
<p>A system and a method of designing and mechanical packaging of pumped laser resonator elements to minimize their size. All the elements of the compact pumped laser resonator assembly (5) are placed on a monolithic block mount (10), which substitutes for and functions as a laser diode heatsink, a laser resonator cavity mount, and an optical bench. The laser optical cavity is in the form of a laser path (11) defined within the monolithic block mount (10), and includes a plurality of bends (40) in order to decrease the size of the assembly. The laser resonator optical elements include fold prisms (22, 24), a reflector (38), a retroreflector (32) and an intracavity optical Q-switch (30). The resultant miniaturized diode array pumped laser resonator assembly has a volume of less than one cubic inch and dimensions less than or equal to about 30 mm x 25 mm x 13 mm in metric units, and weighs less than two ounces or 56 g, while providing a laser power of more than 1 mJ. The compact pumped laser resonator is preferably manufactured by machining the monolithic block mount (10) using a computer-controlled machine, to generate a plurality of component mounts with a substantially identical setup and tolerances, in order to keep the laser resonator self-aligned.</p> |