Design and operation of a 150 W near diffraction-limited laser amplifier with SBS wavefront correction

• Published in: IEEE journal of quantum electronics 1995-01, Vol.31 (1), p.148-163
• Main Authors: Dane, C.B., Zapata, L.E., Neuman, W.A., Norton, M.A., Hackel, L.A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Brillouin scattering; Diffraction; Doped-insulator lasers and other solid state lasers; Exact sciences and technology; Frequency; Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications); Laser optical systems: design and operation; Lasers; Mirrors; Nonlinear optics; Operational amplifiers; Optical design; Optics; Phase conjugation, optical mixing, and photorefractive effect; Phase conjugation, optical mixing; photorefractive and kerr effects; Physics; Power amplifiers; Pulse amplifiers; Pulse measurements; Resonators, cavities, amplifiers, arrays, and rings; Space vector pulse width modulation; Stimulated brillouin and rayleigh scattering
• ISSN: 0018-9197; 1558-1713
• DOI: 10.1109/3.341719

The design and operation of a Nd:glass regenerative amplifier using a stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) phase conjugate mirror is presented. The system can be operated at 25-30 J per pulse with a pulse width of 14 ns and a pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of 6 Hz. This results in an average output power of >150 W with a peak power of 2 GW. The experimentally measured divergence of the amplifier output is 1.25/spl times/ the diffraction limit and it can be frequency doubled with >80% efficiency. The detailed considerations required for this specific amplifier design are discussed as well as how these considerations apply to the design of high average power, high beam quality laser systems in general.< >