Abstract
In this paper, we present a FEM-model that can be used to investigate the effects of thermally induced natural convection at the thin-disk laser crystal. Based on this simulation, we calculated the distribution of the refractive index of the ambient gas for the case of air and helium. By evaluating the optical path difference of a beam at normal incidence, the angular tilt (gas wedge) in the plane of the direction of convection as well as the spherical contribution (gas lens) was calculated for a set of different pump spot geometries and temperatures of the pumped area on the surface of the laser disk. Equations were derived that allow to simply calculate the tilt angle and the focal length of the gas lens for different temperatures of the disk and pump spot diameters for air as ambient medium.
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