Intracavity adaptive optics. 4: Comparison of theory and experiment.

A numerical analysis of the system performance of the intracavity adaptive optics experiment is presented. The analysis begins with a detailed comparison of the calculated and experimentally measured sensitivities of the unstable laser to both intracavity phase-tilt and astigmatism aberrations. The appropriate sensitivity measures considered here will be the outcoupled power and the far-field beam quality and power-in-thebucket due to the field distribution outcoupled from the cavity. Of primary importance here is the correction obtained by the multidither zonal COAT system when a known intracavity phase aberration is introduced. The experimental performance with either beam quality or power in the bucket optimization is numerically assessed along with a comparison of intracavity and extracavity adaptive optic control.