Fabrication and properties of novel composite laser ceramics with a surface‐gain structure.

To suppress heat effects in a high‐power laser system, it has been proposed to use a few composite laser gain media to improve the heat management ability. The surface‐gain structure has the advantages of both slab and thin‐disk configurations, which has huge potential in high‐power laser. For the first time, novel composite laser ceramics with surface‐gain structure have been fabricated by tape casting and sintering technology. The in‐line transmittances of surface‐gain ceramics in 1100 and 400 nm are 83.5% and 79.1%, respectively. According to the laser ablation–coupled plasma mass spectrometry, the diffusion distance of Yb3+ is about 150 µm. The laser experiment yields a low repetition rate pulse of 1.9 J with a pump absorption energy of 11 J and an optical‐to‐optical conversion efficiency of 17.2%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]