High-power picosecond regenerative amplifier based on CW diode side-pumped Nd:YAG with high beam quality

A compact high-power picosecond regenerative amplifier based on continuous wave(CW) diode sidepumped Nd:YAG is demonstrated.Average power of 8.8 W is achieved at a repetition rate of 5 kHz at a wavelength of 1 064 nm with a pulse duration of 28 ps,corresponding to a pulse energy of 1.76 mJ and a peak power of 62.9 MW.The beam quality is close to the di?raction limit with Mx2 = 1.24,My2 = 1.03.To the best of our knowledge,this is the highest pulse energy obtained from a CW diode pumped Nd:YAG picosecond regenerative amplifier.     

Six 38.7 W pulses in a burst of pulse-burst picosecond 1064 nm laser system at 1 kHz

A burst of six pulses with an average power of 38.7 W are obtained for a pulse-burst picosecond 1064 nm laser system at 1 k Hz. The six pulses have equal amplitudes and pulse spacings of 800 ps, the beam quality of the M2 factor is less than 2, and the pulse width is 67 ps. Seed pulses are broadened from 22 to 136 ps by single-pass volume Bragg gratings. A laser-diode end-pump Nd:YVO_4 beam-splitting amplifier is used to divide and amplify a single pulse into six pulses. An Nd:YAG regenerative amplifier and a single-pass high-gain amplifier are applied.     

钛宝石再生放大器实验研究

分析了啁啾脉冲在钛宝石再生放大器中的能量增益与泵浦光及信号光光束口径的关系。并用不同能量的调Ｑ倍频ＮｄＹＡＧ激光器的５３２ｎｍ光为泵浦光，测量了２ＴＷ钛宝石激光系统中钛宝石再生放大器在无注入信号脉冲时和有注入信号脉冲时的脉冲建立时间及相应的输出能量大小。再生放大器的增益为２×１０７。     

High energy and long pulse generation with high-birefringence photonic crystal fibre and laser-diode pumped regenerative amplifier

We report on the generation of a high energy and long pulse for pumping optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) by a high-birefringence photonic crystal fibre (HB-PCF) and a laser-diode-pumped regenerative chirped pulse amplifier. Using the femtosecond pump pulse centred at 815~nm, a 1064~nm soliton pulse is produced in the HB-PCF. After injecting it into an Nd:YAG regenerative amplifier with the glass etalons, a narrow-band amplified pulse with an energy of $\sim $4~mJ and a duration of 235 ps is achieved at a repetition rate of 10~Hz, which is suitable for being used as a pump source in the 800~nm OPCPA system.     

High-energy, diode-pumped, picosecond Yb:YAG chirped-pulse regenerative amplifier for pumping optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification

A diode-pumped, cryogenic-cooled Yb:YAG regenerative amplifier utilizing gain-narrowing has been developed. A 1.2-ns chirped-seed pulse was simultaneously amplified and compressed in the regenerative amplifier, which generated a 35-ps pulse with ~8-mJ of energy without a pulse compressor. Second-harmonics of the amplified pulse was used to pump picosecond two-color optical parametric amplification.     

High-Gain Nanosecond Vortex Laser

We demonstrate a high-gain vortex power amplifier with the double-pass configuration based on the rod Nd:YAG crystal. In the experiments, a nanosecond vortex seed beam is converted from a conventional Q-switched Nd:YAG laser output with a spiral phase plate and then amplified with the Nd:YAG amplifier stage. A maximum amplification output energy up to 163.5 mJ is achieved at 20 Hz with a 3.2-ns pulse, corresponding to an amplification factor of 81.8. Further discussions are provided to find ways of increasing the power scaling.     

激光二极管抽运的高重频高平均功率Nd:YAG激光器

搭建了一台高重复频率、高峰值功率、高平均功率的激光器. 激光器主要包括三部分: 单纵模光纤种子源、激光二极管阵列抽运的Nd:YAG再生放大器和四程放大器. 系统获得了平均功率11 W、重复频率100 Hz、脉冲能量112 mJ、脉宽500 ps–2 ns可调的激光输出, 工作波长1064 nm. 输出光束口径6.8 mm, 1.5倍衍射极限, 近场光强近平顶分布, 能量稳定性为0.72%. 关键词： 激光二极管抽运 高重复频率 高峰值功率 高平均功率     

Synchronously pumped femtosecond dye oscillator-amplifier system at 815 nm

A tunable dye oscillator-amplifier system that produces 0.25 mJ, 105 fs pulses at 815 nm is demonstrated. The system consists of a synchronously pumped femtosecond dye laser followed by a dye amplifier that is quasi-longitudinally pumped using the frequency-doubled output from a Nd:YAG regenerative amplifier.     

Plasma-mediated ablation of brain tissue with picosecond laser pulses

Plasma-mediated ablations of brain tissue have been performed using picosecond laser pulses obtained from a Nd:YLF oscillator/regenerative amplifier system. The laser pulses had a pulse duration of 35 ps at a wavelength of 1.053 µm. The pulse energy varied from 90 µJ to 550 µJ at a repetition rate of 400 Hz. The energy density at the ablation threshold was measured to be 20 J/cm². Comparisons have been made to 19 ps laser pulses at 1.68 µm and 2.92 µm from an OPG/OPA system and to microsecond pulse trains at 2.94 µm from a free running Er:YAG laser. Light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy were performed to judge the depth and the quality of the ablated cavities. No thermal damage was induced by either of the picosecond laser systems. The Er:YAG laser, on the other hand, showed 20 µm wide lateral damage zones due to the longer pulse durations and the higher pulse energies.     

Demonstration of a compact 100 Hz, 0.1 J, diode-pumped picosecond laser

We have demonstrated an all-diode-pumped Yb:YAG chirped pulse amplification laser that produces 100 mJ pulses of 5 ps duration at 100 Hz repetition rate. The compact laser system combines a room-temperature Yb:YAG regenerative amplifier for increased bandwidth and a cryogenically cooled Yb:YAG four-pass amplifier for improved heat dissipation and increased efficiency. The optical efficiency of this amplifier is higher than that of other diode-pumped systems of comparable energy.     

Laser-diode-pumped Nd:YVO<Subscript>4</Subscript>/Nd:YAG MOPA burst-mode laser

We report a high-repetition-rate, high-peak-power laser diode (LD) pumped burst-mode 1064 nm laser from a Nd:YVO₄/Nd:YAG master oscillator power amplifier. 10–100 kHz pulse burst in a duration up to 2 ms is achieved in LD end-pumped Nd:YVO₄ acousto-optically Q-switched laser. After amplification with LD side-pumped Nd:YAG rod amplifiers, the single pulse energy reaches 73 mJ in 10 kHz pulse burst laser with a peak power of 7.8 MW.     

Optical parametric chirped pulse amplification based on photonic crystal fibre

A compact two-stage optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier based on photonic crystal fibre is demonstrated.A 1064-nm soliton pulse is obtained in a home-made photonic crystal fibre (PCF) with femtosecond pulse pumping and then amplified to 2 mJ in an Nd:YAG regenerative amplifier.After the amplified pulses pass through the LBO crystal,the 532-nm double-frequency light with an energy of 0.8 mJ and a duration of over 100 ps at 10-Hz repetition rate is generated as a pump source in the following two-stage optical parametric amplification (OPA).The 850-nm chirped signal light gain from the stretcher is 1.5×10 4 in the first-stage OPA while it is 120 in the second-stage OPA.The total signal gain of optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) can reach 1.8×10 6.     

Development of high-efficiency 10 kHzmJps Yb:YAG laser for industry

We are currently developing a high-efficiency Yb:YAG regenerative amplifier pumped by CW diode lasers. The performance of the regenerative amplifier was estimated by theoretical calculations. For the excitation process, a rate equation was numerically integrated over the repetition interval with CW pumping. For the regenerative pulse amplification process, the Frantz-Nodvik equation was applied for each pass. The result of the theoretical calculation was compared with experimental data of a 2 mJ output pulse energy at a 10 kHz repetition rate. An optical-optical conversion efficiency of 17.8% was achieved. The outline of a prototype under development for a commercial product is also mentioned     

A compact subnanosecond high power Nd:YAG laser system

In this paper, a high power Nd:YAG laser system is described, which consists of an actively-passively mode-locked Nd:YAG laser oscillator with variable subnanosecond pulsewidths (200 ps to 1 ns), a Pockels-cell shutter and a coaxial four-pass Nd:YAG amplifier. With the oscillator operating in the colliding pulse regime, and a BDN dye film as the saturable absorber, and an acousto-optic modulator as the active modelocker, we have achieved a shot-to-shot stability of the pulse-train amplitude < ±4%. For a 0.1 mJ, 200 ps laser pulse, we obtained four-pass amplification of 7 × 10² with a pump energy of 106 J.     

Highly Stable, Diode-Pumped Nd：YLF Regenerative Amplifier

We present the design and experimental results for a diode pumped Nd：YLF regenerative amplifier applied to amplify a nanosecond laser pulse. Numerical simulation shows that the maximum output energy and the best stability can be obtained when the regenerative amplifier operates in a saturated mode for all pulse duration and temporal profiles. Using extra post-pulse is a good method to decrease the square-pulse distortion caused by gain saturation effect. The amplifier shows output energy of 4.2mJ with a total energy gain of more than 10^7 and output energy stability of better than 1% rms. When extra post-pulse is added, square-pulse distortion is decreased from 1.33 to 1.17 for the amplifier that is seeded with an optical pulse of 3ns.     

Picosecond pulse contrast enhancement by use of polarization rotation in crystals with the second-order nonlinearity

We report on the implementation of intensity-dependent filter for picosecond pulse temporal cleaning based on an effect of pulse polarization rotation during the unbalanced phase matched second harmonic generation. The pulse contrast enhancement by more than two orders of magnitude and filter transmission of ∼25% has been demonstrated at pulse intensities of <1 GW/cm². A simple and reliable all-solid-state filter scheme was integrated in a two-stage picosecond Nd:YAG regenerative amplifier seeded with pJ-energy femtosecond pulses of the Yb:KGW oscillator, and allowed us to reduce the ASE intensity level down to 1.5×10⁻⁸ with reference to the intensity of main 100 ps and 100 μJ pulse.     

双程放大740 mJ TEC冷却LD泵浦Nd:YAG激光器

报道了一种实现高能量输出的激光二极管（LD）泵浦无水冷全固态Nd：YAG双程放大器结构。整个放大系统采用了泵浦与晶体棒集成的模块以及半导体制冷器（TEC）,从而实现了激光系统的小型化。总腔长为730 mm。在10 Hz重复频率下,主振荡器得到了最大脉冲能量为350 mJ的激光输出。脉宽为9.7 ns,光束质量M²在两个方向分别为7.7和12.3。并进行了双程放大的研究,双程放大后得到了740 mJ、10 ns的激光输出。     

Compact directly diode-pumped femtosecond Nd:glass chirped-pulse-amplification laser system

An all-solid-state longitudinally diode-pumped Nd:glass chirped-pulse-amplification laser system producing pulses of 50-MW peak power has been developed. The diode-pumped Nd:glass regenerative amplifier produces pulses with energies as great as 56microJ at a 1-kHz repetition rate and pulse durations as short as 450 fs after compression in a compact single holographic-transmission-grating stretcher-compressor arrangement. Further, spectral gain shaping was shown to extend the bandwidth that was supported in the low-gain amplifier. To the best of our knowledge, this system provides the highest peak and average power obtained from a directly diode-pumped femtosecond laser.     

Sub-kHz cryogenic Yb:YAG regenerative amplifier by using a total-reflection active mirror

The first pulse operation using a total-reflection active mirror (TRAM) with a cryogenic Yb:YAG/YAG monolithic composite ceramics was demonstrated in a regenerative amplifier scheme. More than 5.0 mJ of output pulse energy was obtained for repetition rates between 10 and 450 Hz. A high energy fluence of 3.5 J/cm² on the active media was realized by separating input and output surfaces of the TRAM.     

双向抽运钛宝石的高效率多通脉冲主放大研究

从啁啾脉冲放大的基本理论出发，系统地计算了啁啾脉冲在多通放大过程中的增益特性，并设计了一个六通主放大器，对应能量提取效率为38％，输出能量大于1J. 关键词： 双向抽运 多通放大 钛宝石激光器