Abstract
Generation of a train of picosecond pulses with high-reproducibility is interesting for a wide range of applications in medicine, spectroscopy, material science, OPO and FEL development. The passively mode-locked (ML) CW pumped lasers are the most robust approach for obtaining steady state operation but their pulse energy is quite limited (1-10nJ). Pulse pumping has significant advantages in terms of energy scaling and cost reduction. The major drawback in such lasers is the fluctuation of both pulse energy and duration, coming from the statistical nature of the intra-cavity light formation and lack of quasi steady-state pulse formation within the pump pulse[1]. Although the electro-optical negative feedback control (NFC) has been used to improve the performance of pulsed diode pumped systems [2,3] the operation is limited to the low repetition frequency (<100Hz). Moreover the repetition frequency limitation also depends on the thermal resistance of the high-voltage photocurrent element used in the NFC. Here we report mode-locked operation of a pulsed pumped Nd:YVO4 laser using NFC emitting picosecond pulses enveloped in 60 µs pulses at 400 Hz repetition rate with ~1 mJ macro-pulse energy, and excellent beam quality (M2 < 1,2). The quasi-steady operation and self mode-locking of the laser is obtained, by introducing the NFC in the laser resonator
© 2011 Optical Society of America
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