PULSE LENGTH AND TERMINAL-LEVEL LIFETIME DEPENDENCE OF ENERGY EXTRACTION FOR NEODYMIUM-DOPED PHOSPHATE AMPLIFIER GLASS

On the basis of detailed numerical calculations, we have;formulated an empirical expression for the saturation fluence in neodymium-doped ph osphate amplifier glass that explicitly depends upon the ratio of the pulse width to the terminal-level lifetime, The empirical expression, when substituted within the Frantz-Nodvik solution for energy extracti on, can be used to determine the impact of the lower level lifetime on the energy extracted from Nd:phosphate glass amplifiers, We used our empirical solution to model experimental gain-saturation data and dete rmine the terminal-level lifetime, We compared this value with two ind ependent experiments and found that all three experiments yielded simi lar results, The terminal-level lifetime of LG-750 at room temperature is found to be 253 ps +/- 50 ps.