Abstract
Flashlamp-pumped, Q-switched Nd:YAG-lasers provide high energy nanosecond light pulses at repetition-rates of up to 100 Hz. The wide range of applications covers material processing, optical spectroscopy and pumping of nonlinear frequency conversion processes. For a high energy extraction large diameter laser rods in resonator cavities with large fresnel numbers have to be used. However the drawback of these cavities is a transverse highly multimode beam with more or less poor beam quality. In the past, several methods for an improved laser beam quality have been investigated. Positive-branch confocal unstable resonators in combination with variable reflectivity mirrors hereby have become a standard solution for generating large diameter modes in conjunction with a low beam divergence.
© 2002 Optical Society of America
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