A 2.2J all-diode-pumped Nd:YAG burst-mode laser at repetition rate of 10kHz

An all-diode-pumped Nd:YAG burst-mode laser was demonstrated. A diode-laser-side-pumped Nd:YAG laser with Qswitcher, as laser oscillator, was employed to produce burst pulse directly. When the diode-laser worked at 10Hz and Qswitcher was operated at 10kHz, a maximum burst energy of 456mJ was obtained in the master oscillator with the highest optical efficiency of ~30%. Each burst included 19 pulses in the pumping duration of 2ms. A master oscillator and power amplifier architecture was adapted to scale the burst energy to meet PLIF system applications. The burst energy of 456mJ obtained from laser oscillator was amplified to 2.2J by use of three diode-laser-side-pumped Nd:YAG modules as laser amplifiers. The energy extraction efficiency of each stage was achieved to ~13%, ~22% and ~24%, respectively. The single pulse energy of 1064nm laser at 10 kHz reached to ~116 mJ with pulse width of 9.8 ns and a peak power of ~11.8 MW. The performances of pulse-burst laser we constructed can be better and improved greatly by use of more amplifiers.