The goal and essential parameter of laser light conversion is achieving emitted radiation of higher brightness. For many applications, the laser beam must have the highest available beam quality and highest achievable power. However, lasers with higher average power values usually have poorer beam quality, limiting the achievable brightness. Here, we present a method for improving the beam quality by using a spatially structured optical pump for a membrane external cavity laser resonator. An increase in brightness is achieved under fixed focusing conditions just by changing the pump intensity profile. A controllable output laser mode can be achieved by using a dynamically changing pump pattern.
Keywords: MECSEL; modulated pump; spatial beam shaping.