Enhancing Sun-pumped laser performance by a truncated fused silica elliptical pump cavity

Sun-pumped lasers are useful for space and terrestrial applications. In terms of collection efficiency and beam quality, solar lasers still have a way to go to seriously compete with solar PV-cell diode-pumped solid-state lasers. The main challenges are the needs of both doubling the reported collection efficiency of 6.7 W/m
²
and improving the beam quality of today's solar lasers. To enhance the solar laser performance, a truncated fused silica elliptical pump cavity is proposed.