Abstract

Power scaling of cw diode-pumped Nd:YAG lasers has been limited by birefringence and thermal lensing. Slab geometries have largely overcome these difficulties but are rather complex and do not easily lend themselves to producing short-pulse Q-switched output, which is desirable for nonlinear conversion. We present a scalable cw pumped architecture producing 50 W cw output from a master oscillator/power amplifier approach.

© 1996 Optical Society of America