Numerical modeling of thermal effects in a high-power injection-locked cw Ti:sapphire laser

With the FEA and matrix methods, the thermal lenses induced by the thermooptic effect, thermally induced mechanical strain and end face bulging in a Ti:sapphire crystal are analyzed. The results show that there is an unignorable strain-induced lens in a high pump power region. With the thermal lens effect, an injection-locked cw Ti:sapphire laser is numerically simulated. We find that the poor mode matching between the lasing and pump beams due to thermal lens will cause the slope efficiency decreasing. The calculated results agree with the reported experimental data, and we also predict that the thermal lens is obviously active at a certain pump power level.