A glass-disk-laser amplifier

Abstract

The details of the analysis, design, and operation of a Nd-glass-disk-laser amplifier which has been constructed at the Naval Research Laboratory are presented. Gain and fluorescence measurements have been compared to theoretical predictions; these show that 0.6-J/cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3</sup> energy storage is achieved in the disk (assuming a cross section of <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">3.0 \times 10^{-20}</tex> cm <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sup> ). The effects of unsuppressed parasitic oscillations are demonstrated and an effective method of preventing their occurrence is shown. The disk amplifier has demonstrated 320-J output in a 1-ns pulse with 110-J input.