Diode-pumped composite ceramic Nd:YAG planar waveguide amplifier with 327 mJ output at 100 Hz repetition rate

We present a diode-pumped high-energy ceramic Nd:YAG planar waveguide that is demonstrated as a record in output energy for the ceramic planar waveguide fabricated by nonaqueous tape casting and solid-state reactive sintering. Under a repetition rate of 100 Hz and a pulse width of 250 μs, a maximum output pulse energy of 327 mJ is obtained with a beam quality factor of =2.6×7.0. The corresponding peak power is 1308 W. The extraction efficiency of the system is about 56%.