抄録
End-pumped micro-thicknness slab laser architectures, named as thin-rod and thin-slab, are proposed for highpower and efficient pulse amplification of quasi-four-level lasers. Advantages of the architectures exist in its high gain and efficient energy storage characteristics. It also exhibits high cooling efficiency by large cooling area with small slab volume. Thin-rod laser architecture has been investigated for average output power of several tens W and thin-slab laser architecture has been investigated for average output power above hundreds W. From free running operation of the thin-rod regenerative amplifier, average output power of 18 W was obtained at pulse repetition rate of 100 kHz. A high-average-power and high-efficiency thin-slab Yb: YAG laser has been developed with cw output power of 257 W, slope effieciency of 59% and optical conversion efficiency of 49%.
