100-watt average output power 1.2 diffraction limited beam from pulsed neodymium single-rod amplifier with SBS phase conjugation

Author

Eichler, Hans J. ; Haase, Andreas ; Menzel, Ralf

Author_Institution

Opt. Inst., Tech. Univ. Berlin, Germany

Volume

31

Issue

7

fYear

1995

fDate

7/1/1995 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1265

Lastpage

1269

Abstract

We describe a solid-state master oscillator-amplifier-laser (MOPA) with a minimum number of elements for the double-pass single-rod amplifier. It produces 100-W average output power of pulsed light with an almost diffraction limited beam. The Q-switched system works with an average repetition rate of about 3 kHz and the pulse width was 70 ns. As active material we used Nd:YALO (Nd:YAP) which has negligible depolarization. The strong thermal lens of the material with focal lengths of less than 15 cm at pump powers of 8 kW was compensated by a phase conjugating mirror based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). Therefore, the output power could be varied from 2 W up to 100 W without changing the transversal beam profile. The total efficiency of the amplifier including the phase conjugator is 1.25%

Keywords

Q-switching; laser beams; laser mirrors; neodymium; optical phase conjugation; solid lasers; stimulated Brillouin scattering; yttrium compounds; 1.25 percent; 100 W; 2 to 100 W; 3 kHz; 70 ns; 8 kW; Q-switched system; SBS phase conjugation; YAlO₃:Nd; average output power; average repetition rate; diffraction limited beam; double-pass single-rod amplifier; focal lengths; output power; phase conjugating mirror; phase conjugator; pulsed light; solid-state master oscillator-amplifier-laser; stimulated Brillouin scattering; thermal lens; total efficiency; transversal beam profile; Brillouin scattering; Diffraction; Lenses; Optical materials; Power amplifiers; Power generation; Pulse amplifiers; Solid state circuits; Space vector pulse width modulation; Thermal lensing;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.391090

Filename

391090