Quasi-continuously pumped operation of 2.4% doped crystalline Nd:YAG in a bounce geometry

We report on efficient operation of highly doped 2.4 at. % crystalline Czochralski grown Nd:YAG at 1.06μm, 1.3μm and 1.4μm in a diode pumped bounce amplifier configuration under quasi-continuous pumping. At wavelength of 1064nm the linearly polarized pulses with energy of 16.8 mJ in free running regime with repetition rate of 10 Hz (optical to optical efficiency of 44.6 % and slope efficiency of 50%) and 1 mJ in passively Q-switched regime with pulse duration of 6.4 ns were generated.The passively Q switched operation at 1.3μm was also demonstrated.