Diode-pumped Nd:YLF regenerative amplifier

Abstract

A diode-pumped Nd:YLF regenerative amplifier operating at 1047 nm produces 88-microJ, 11-ps pulses at a 1-kHz repetition frequency. Switching of the 250-MHz seed pulses with a Pockels cell in the half-wave configuration is achieved with a contrast ratio of 20:1. After 50 round trips, the amplified pulse experiences an overall energy gain of 73 dB when the amplifier is seeded with 4-pJ pulses (1-mW average seed power). At 1 kHz, doubling and quadrupling yields 46 microJ/pulse at 524 nm and 8.1 microJ/pulse at 262 nm, with corresponding conversion efficiencies of 52% and 23%. At 3.5 kHz, the amplifier generated 97 mW of power at 524 nm and 15.8 mW of power at 262 nm.