{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,29]],"date-time":"2026-04-29T19:02:03Z","timestamp":1777489323796,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":42,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"18","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,20]],"date-time":"2025-09-20T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1758326400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Funda\u00e7\u00e3o para a Ci\u00eancia e a Tecnologia (FCT)","award":["CEFITEC UID\/00068"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["CEFITEC UID\/00068"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Energies"],"abstract":"<jats:p>A solar-pumped Ce:Nd:YAG laser amplifier design is proposed to address the challenge of scaling output power in solar-pumped laser oscillators while maintaining high beam quality. The design employs a 1.33 m2 flat Fresnel lens with a 2 m focal length as a primary concentrator, which is combined with a secondary homogenizing concentrator, featuring 40 mm \u00d7 40 mm input aperture, 200 mm length, and 11.3 mm \u00d7 26 mm output aperture, to provide efficient coupling and uniform distribution of solar radiation onto a 2.9 mm thick Ce:Nd:YAG slab with 11.3 mm \u00d7 26 mm surface area and two beveled corners. This geometry enables multiple total internal reflections of a 1064 nm TEM00 mode seed laser beam inside the slab, ensuring efficient interaction with the active Ce3+ and Nd3+ ions in the gain medium. Performed numerical analysis shows that the present approach can deliver a uniform solar pump power density of 2.5 W\/mm2 to the slab amplifier. This value is 2.05-times higher than the numerically calculated power density incident on the Nd:YAG slab of the previous solar-pumped amplifier that achieved the highest continuous-wave laser gain of 1.64. Furthermore, the optimized slab geometry with 0.44 width-to-height ratio allows the seed laser to undergo 32 internal reflections, extending its optical path length by a factor of 1.45 compared to the earlier design. These numerical achievements, combined with the Ce:Nd:YAG medium\u2019s capacity to deliver nearly 1.57-times more laser power than Nd:YAG, reveal the potential of proposed design to yield a gain enhancement factor of 4.16, making the first solar-pumped Ce:Nd:YAG amplifier a promising solution toward energy-efficient, sustainable solutions for terrestrial and space applications.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/en18185009","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,22]],"date-time":"2025-09-22T11:18:16Z","timestamp":1758539896000},"page":"5009","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Solar-Pumped Ce:Nd:YAG Laser Amplifier Design"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5890-7623","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Joana","family":"Almeida","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre of Physics and Technological Research (CEFITEC), Physics Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal"}]},{"given":"Bruno D.","family":"Tib\u00farcio","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre of Physics and Technological Research (CEFITEC), Physics Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0591-5309","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hugo","family":"Costa","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre of Physics and Technological Research (CEFITEC), Physics Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9370-1997","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Cl\u00e1udia R.","family":"Vistas","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre of Physics and Technological Research (CEFITEC), Physics Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4406-4108","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Dawei","family":"Liang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Centre of Physics and Technological Research (CEFITEC), Physics Department, NOVA School of Science and Technology, Campus de Caparica, 2829-516 Caparica, Portugal"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"126028","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jclepro.2021.126028","article-title":"Role of solar energy in reducing ecological footprints: An empirical analysis","volume":"292","author":"Sharif","year":"2021","journal-title":"J. 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