The effect of radial radiation transport on the interpretation of saturation parameter measurements in laser systems

The influence of a spatial profile in the gain, which can be caused by saturation of the medium by the beam, is studied on the amplification properties of the beam. It is found that the amplifying medium is about twice as efficiently depleted as can be expected on basis of a plane-wave approximation. This means that the saturation-parameter values as they have been deduced in the past are wrong by a factor two. The theoretical results are applied to cw CO2 measurements