Diode-pumped, thermally-edge-controlled slab laser with high-energy and large-aperture

Author

Kawashima, T. ; Kurita, T. ; Matsumoto, O. ; Ikegawa, T. ; Sekine, T. ; Miyamoto, M. ; Iyama, K. ; Kan, H. ; Tsuchiya, Y. ; Yasuhara, R. ; Kawanaka, J. ; Norimatsu, T. ; Miyanaga, N. ; Nakatsuka, M. ; lzawa, Y. ; Furukawa, H.

Author_Institution

Hamamatsu Photonics KK, Japan

fYear

2005

fDate

12-17 June 2005

Firstpage

23

Abstract

High-peak and high-average power diode-pumped solid-state laser is one of the most useful pump sources for high-intensity laser-driven applications as well as inertial fusion energy. Zig-zag slab scheme has a potential to scale up to the orders of giga-watt in peak power and kilo-watt in average power simultaneously, because of its availability of larger aperture and higher cooling capability. Diode-pumped Nd:YLF regenerative ring amplifier is amplified by a double pass through the left slab amplifier up to 3 J, before the beam is optically expand to the full aperture of a slab amplifier by the anamorphic telescope, and it is cut out by the rectangular serrated aperture of 0.8 cm wide×4.8 cm high. The laser pulse passes the slabs four times each in two symmetrical paths. Finally the output pulse is ejected by a thin-film polarizer.

Keywords

laser fusion; neodymium; optical polarisers; optical pumping; solid lasers; yttrium compounds; LiYF4:Nd; Nd:YLF regenerative ring amplifier; YLF:Nd; anamorphic telescope; diode-pumped laser; higher cooling capability; inertial fusion energy; laser-driven application; rectangular serrated aperture; solid-state laser; thermally-edge-controlled slab laser; thin-film polarizer; zig-zag slab scheme; Apertures; Diodes; Laser beam cutting; Laser fusion; Optical amplifiers; Pulse amplifiers; Pump lasers; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Slabs; Solid lasers;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe, 2005. CLEO/Europe. 2005 Conference on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8974-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CLEOE.2005.1567812

Filename

1567812