Astigmatic Herriott cell for optical refrigeration

Cooling rare-earth-doped crystals to the lowest temperature possible requires enhanced resonant absorption and high-purity crystals. Since resonant absorption decreases as the crystal is cooled, the only path forward is to increase the number of roundtrips that the laser makes inside the crystal. To achieve even lower temperatures than previously reported, we have employed an astigmatic Herriott cell to improve laser absorption at low temperatures. Preliminary results indicate improvement over previous designs. This cavity potentially enables us to use unpolarized high-power fiber lasers, and to achieve much higher cooling power for practical applications.