Abstract
Compact diode-pumped Nd:YLF lasers, capable of generating high-peak-power picosecond pulses, have attracted considerable recent attention because of a variety of applications. Standard techniques to generate high-power picosecond pulses with Nd:YLF rely on the well-known oscillator/regenerative-amplifier method. Transferring the regeneratively amplified Nd:YLF technology to nonlaboratory environments requires considerable simplification of the laser systems. The all-in-one concept features only one laser, which serves as oscillator and regenerative amplifier by simply time sharing the pulse shaping and amplification procedures. The concept has been previously demonstrated with Nd:YAG by using flash-lamp-pumped laser heads.1 In these lasers the pulse-shaping period, which is frequently referred to as prelasing, is achieved by detuning the quarter-wave plate in the cavity. In high-gain diode-pumped systems this method results in uncontrolled prelasing, and the total energy of the long prelasing pulse train exceeds that of the amplified picosecond laser pulse.
© 1995 Optical Society of America
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