Passively mode locked quasi-continuously pumped 2.4% doped crystalline Nd:YAG laser in a bounce geometry

In this paper we report on optimization of quasi-continuously pumped 2.4at.% Nd crystalline Nd:YAG laser in a bounce geometry passively mode-locked by semiconductor saturable absorbers consisted of 33 or 100 quantum wells in transmission mode. Depending on the laser resonator configuration, either long output trains consisted of more than 100 pulses with total energy of 170 μJ and variable pulse duration from 120 ps in the beginning to 35 ps at the end of the train, or short trains consisted of 5 pulses and the total energy of 325 μJ with 71 ps pulse duration were generated.