Laser-diode-pumped 10-J X 10-Hz Nd:glass slab laser system

As a first step of a driver development for the inertial fusion energy, we are developing a diode-pumped zig-zag Nd:glass slab laser amplifier system which can generate an output of 10 J per pulse at 1053 nm in 10 Hz operation. The water-cooled zig-zag Nd:glass slab is pumped from both sides by 803-nm AlGaAs laser-diode (LD) module; each LD module has an emitting area of 420 mm X 10 mm and two LD modules generated in total 200 kW peak power with 2.5 kW/cm 2 peak intensity at 10 Hz repetition rate. We have obtained in a preliminary experiment a 8.5 J output energy at 0.5 Hz with beam quality of 2 times diffraction limited far-field pattern.