Laguerre-Gaussian Modes Selection in Diode-Pumped Solid-State Lasers

Over the last twenty years, diode pumping of solid-state lasers has opened new prospects for the mode control and formation of Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) beams, enabling a large variety of applications. Experiments on scalar and vector LG modes selection in Nd3+- and Yb3+-doped ceramics and crystal lasers carried out at the Institute for Laser Science, Tokyo are reviewed. Selection of LG modes from low to high orders using intra-cavity elements, polarization-selective mirrors, or shaping the pump beam profile, is considered. Illustrations of record-high-order LG hollow modes, multiring modes with highly directional propagation properties, characteristics of cw and pulsed lasers with radially or azimuthally polarized beams of high polarization purity are presented. General solutions of the wave equation for the axi-symmetric electric field, which describe LG beams of various profiles, are proposed for data analysis. In parallel, a short review on LG modes selection studies carried out at other laboratories is given.