A Comparison of Lamps for Use in High Continuous Power Nd:YAG Lasers

The efficiency of krypton, xenon, and tungsten-iodine lamps for pumping Nd: YAG are compared both spectroscopically and by laser pumping. The relative pumping efficiencies of xenon and tungsten to krypton are 0.86 and 1.1, respectively. However, because the tungsten filament uses a higher percentage of its power in overcoming the laser threshold, the krypton lamp with its larger power density yielded the best over-all efficiency. An output power of 105 W was obtained at an input power of 3610 W for an over-all efficiency of 2.9%.