Abstract

A master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) $\text{Nd}:{\text{YVO}}_4$ laser with a controllable gain distribution was built up in our experiment. With the gain guiding effects, the final beam quality of the MOPA system with two amplification stages was near-diffraction-limited $\left(M^2\approx 1.2\right)$ compared with $M^2\approx 2.5$ in the master oscillator, and the total extraction efficiency of amplifier stages was up to 44% corresponding to a 107 W laser output. The enhancement of the beam quality during the amplifying process was also observed in the other two MOPA lasers with the optimal gain adjusting, a MOPA laser containing a $\text{Nd}:{\text{YVO}}_4$ seed laser and four $\text{Nd}:{\text{YVO}}_4$ amplifier stages, and another MOPA laser containing a Nd:yttrium aluminum garnet acoustic-optic cavity dump pulsed seed laser and four $\text{Nd}:{\text{YVO}}_4$ amplifier stages. It has been shown for the first time to our knowledge that not only the power scaling can be realized in the MOPA configuration, but the beam quality can be enhanced as well because of the gain guiding effects.

© 2010 Optical Society of America

Beam quality improvement by gain guiding effect in end-pumped Nd:YVO₄ laser amplifiers

Zhen Xiang, Dan Wang, Sunqiang Pan, Yantao Dong, Zhigang Zhao, Tong Li, Jianhong Ge, Chong Liu, and Jun Chen
Opt. Express 19(21) 21060-21073 (2011)

5 kHz, 4.2mJ, 900 ps end-pumped Nd:YVO₄ MOPA laser system

Yiping Zhou, Xudong Li, Chaojie Wei, Xiaojie Chen, Haobo Xu, Rongwei Fan, Deying Chen, Yugang Jiang, and Renpeng Yan
Opt. Express 30(16) 29833-29840 (2022)

Beam quality management by periodic reproduction of wavefront aberrations in end-pumped Nd:YVO₄ laser amplifiers

Bin Liu, Chong Liu, Lifeng Shen, Chunhua Wang, Zhibin Ye, Dong Liu, and Zhen Xiang
Opt. Express 24(8) 8988-8996 (2016)

1.6  MW peak power, 90  ps all-solid-state laser from an aberration self-compensated double-passing end-pumped Nd:YVO₄ rod amplifier

Chunhua Wang, Chong Liu, Lifeng Shen, Zhiliang Zhao, Bin Liu, and Hongbo Jiang
Appl. Opt. 55(9) 2399-2403 (2016)

183 W TEM₀₀ mode acoustic-optic Q-switched MOPA laser at 850 kHz

Qiang Liu, Xingpeng Yan, Xing Fu, Mali Gong, and Dongsheng Wang
Opt. Express 17(7) 5636-5644 (2009)