STABLE, INTENSE PICOSECOND PULSE GENERATION USING INTRACAVITY GAAS

A reliable pulsed Nd:YAG laser system has been designed to produce 150 -mJ pulses of 260-ps duration with a shot-to-shot standard deviation o f +/-5.8% and a full-angle divergence of 0.6 mrad. The stability is du e to a new cavity-dumped oscillator design that uses an intracavity Ga As plate to stabilize the pulse development and inhibit large fluctuat ions. The resulting output pulse from the cavity-dumped oscillator is 103 mu J, with an average shot-to-shot standard deviation of +/-1.1% a nd a full-angle divergence of 2 mrad. (C) 1995 Optical Society of Amer ica