Diode-pumped Nd:glass regenerative amplifier for subpicosecond microjoule-level pulses

A diode-pumped Nd:fluorophosphate regenerative amplifier was developed. Chirped seed pulses were amplified from between 54 (mu) J at 100 Hz to 5 (mu) J at 10 kHz and compressed to 850 femtoseconds. The effects of continuous-wave pumping on the pulse energy at high repetition rates are also presented.