High average power picosecond and nanosecond laser operating at 1342nm wavelength

ABSTRACT We report results of design and optimization of high average power picosecond and nanosecond laser operating at 1342 nm wavelength. This laser is comprised of master oscillator, regenerative amplifier and output pulse control module. Passively mode-locked Nd:YVO 4 master oscillator emits ~ 10 ps pulses at repetition rate of 55 MHz with average output power of ~ 100 mW. These pulses were used to seed regenerative amplifier based on composite diffusion-bonded Nd:YVO 4 rod with variable Nd doping concentration pumped at 880 nm wavelength. Laser produces 10.9 ps pulses at 300 kHz repetition rate with average output power of 11 W and nearly diffraction limited beam quality M 2 ~ 1.03. Fraction of laser output was converted to the second harmonics with 60 % efficiency providing the average power of 5 W at 671 nm wavelength. Without seeding the regenerative amplifier transforms to electro-optically cavity-dumped Q-switched laser delivering 10 ns pulses at hi gh repetition rates with beam propagation factor of M