Giga-Watt Class, High-Energy Diode-Pumped Solid-State Laser toward the Creation of High-Density-Photon Industries

Abstract

High pulse energy and high average power diode-pumped solid-state laser is promising for the creation of new photonics industries. The operation of 21-J output energy in a 7-ns duration at 10 Hz has been demonstrated from a 800-kW diode-pumped Nd: phosphate glass laser based on thermally-edge-controlled (TEC) zigzag slab amplifiers and multi-pass laser architecture. Although the system has no wavefront correction devices except for the TEC amplifier, 51 % of the output energy was focused into a 5 times diffraction limited spot.The laser system has the potential for scaling the output up to 100 J pulseenergy and 1 kW average power.