2005/10/01 by Hiromitsu Kiriyama, Koichi Yamakawa, Nobuto Kageyama +4
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Solid State Laser Technologies #Laser-Matter Interactions and Applications #Photorefractive and Nonlinear Optics
paper · doi:10.1143/jjap.44.7464
We describe a compact laser-diode-pumped, phase conjugate Nd:YAG master oscillator power amplifier system with a reduced number of components in the single slab amplifier geometry. This system is readily suited for pumping a Ti:sapphire amplifier, making it possible to construct a compact, high-repetition-rate, terawatt-peak-power chirped-pulse amplification system. An average infrared power of 362 W at a repetition rate of 1 kHz in a 29 ns pulse has been produced with an optical-to-optical efficiency of 14%. With a KTiOPO 4 frequency-doubling crystal, an average green output power of 132 W at a repetition rate of 1 kHz has also been generated when pumped at an input incident power of 222 W, corresponding to a second-harmonic energy conversion efficiency of 60%. The average power at both infrared and green wavelengths represents a record performance for a single-amplifier system. We discuss in detail the design, performance and operation of the system including output power, optical efficiency, beam quality and stability.