Quasi-continuously pumped picosecond Nd:GdVO 4 oscillator-amplifier system in bounce geometry

Pulsed, diode pumped solid state lasers are important sources of high power radiation for a wide range of applications such as micromachining, ranging, remote sensing, and microsurgery. Contrary to the conventional high power diode pumped systems based on a low power continuously diode pumped oscillator and regenerative amplifier, the systems pumped by pulsed one or two dimensional laser diode stacks give potential to generate more energetic (milliJoule level) nanosecond and picosecond pulses directly from the laser oscillator. Recently we have reported efficient mode locking of a Nd:YVO 4 and Nd:GdVO 4 slab lasers in a single bounce geometry, pumped by a 100W QCW diode array and mode-locked using a semiconductor multiple quantum well saturable absorber in transmission mode. With cavity dumping single pulses with energy of 15±1 µJ and contrast better than 10 −3 were obtained. The pulse duration was 60 ps [1]. For most of above mentioned applications the higher energy is needed. In this paper we report about the investigation of amplification of the pulses in the second Nd:GdVO 4 slab also in bounce geometry in the single and double pass configuration. The similar scheme but with two single pass stages was used for amplification of pulses from continuously pumped picoseconds oscillator [2]. The schematic of the laser system is shown on Fig. 1.