Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 42 (2003) pp. 2705-2710  |Next Article|  |Table of Contents|
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Design of End-Pumped Thin Rod Yb:YAG Laser Amplifiers

Sakae Kawato and Takao Kobayashi

(Received September 2, 2002; accepted for publication January 8, 2003)

An end-pumped thin rod Yb:YAG laser amplifier architecture is proposed for high-power and efficient pulse amplification of quasi-four-level lasers. A thin and long laser rod with low ion concentration is used and optimum conditions of the laser crystal properties are discussed for efficient amplification of high-repetition-rate pulses. A high single-pass gain is expected and the thermal birefringence loss is significantly smaller than the single-pass gain. From these results, high optical conversion efficiency of more than 50% is expected for pulse amplification in the master-oscillator and power-amplifier (MOPA) system.

URL: http://jjap.jsap.jp/link?JJAP/42/2705/
DOI: 10.1143/JJAP.42.2705
KEYWORDS:quasi-four-level laser, Yb:YAG, diode-pumped solid-state laser amplifier, end-pumping, thin rod

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