Abstract

Reliable sources for laser pulses in the nanosecond and picosecond time domain with repetition rates of several kilohertz, millijoule energy levels and good beam quality are of great interest for micromachining, dental surgery, diagnostics and other applications. For ultrashort (femtosecond to picosecond) pulses, a modelocked oscillator in combination with a regenerative amplifier is used to generate amplified pulses. In rod based solid state lasers the average output power is limited due to thermal effects in the rod (thermal lensing and depolarization). Also the maximum energy is limited by the laser damage threshold of the optical components.

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