Emission characteristics of a tube‐shaped laser oscillator

Long‐pulse emissions characteristics of an oscillator which uses a thin‐walled tube of Nd: glass as the lasing medium are described. Slope efficiency in the single‐shot mode was 0.9%, with 70% of the energy being contained in a full divergence angle of 1.7 mrad. Single‐shot characteristics were maintained at repetition rates up to 0.2 pps in close agreement with the calculated thermal time constant. Peak output of 4.1 times the single‐shot value was obtained at 2–3 pps.