Nonlinear mirror mode-locking of efficiently diode-pumped pulsed neodymiumlasers

We report the development of compact, efficiently diode-pumped Nd:YAG and N d:YAlO8 lasers in a pulsed regime, mode locked by a nonlinear mirror (NLM) technique. Pumping with an 80-W single-bar diode array at a repetition rate as high as 200 Hz and depending on the NLM configuration, trains of 20-100 pulses, with 25-ps pulses with energies as high as 9 mu J each, are genera ted. These novel pulsed picosecond sources show excellent amplitude stabili ty (<2% amplitude fluctuation) and beam quality. Numerical simulations of t he pulse-formation dynamics are presented, and the results are compared wit h the experiments. (C) 1999 Optical Society of America [S0740-3224(99)00708 -0].