Elektronik Laser System GmbH Wins Circle of Excellence Award

The VersaDisk-515 is a frequency-doubled Yb:YAG thin-disk laser for general-purpose scientific applications, including atomic traps, laser tweezers, laser Doppler velocimetry, interferometry, spectroscopy and continuous-wave pumping of Ti:sapphire and dye laser systems.

Manufactured by Elektronik Laser System GmbH of Gross-Zimmern, Germany, the modular device has pumping geometry based on a thin disk that also serves as a high-reflectance cavity mirror and that produces high output power with a good transversal beam profile. The configuration includes heat flow that is collinear to the optical axis and that enables efficient cooling of the crystal. There is no thermal lensing. Additional optical elements can be inserted into the cavity to produce the desired beam characteristics.

The laser operates in pure TEM₀₀ mode and emits 15 W at 515 nm. Adding an etalon enables single-frequency output with a linewidth of less than 5 MHz. If a Lyot filter is used, the wavelength can be adjusted over several nanometers. The output mirror of the resonator can be piezo-controlled, and the laser can be locked to an external reference for frequency stability. It can be configured to emit the fundamental wavelength of 1030 nm and the frequency-doubled output of 515 nm simultaneously. It also can be retrofitted to 1030 nm, if desired, where it offers 100 W of TEM₀₀ output, greater than 30 W of single-frequency power and a selectable wavelength range of 50 nm.