We present results of beam quality investigation in Nd:YAG crystal fiber amplifier seeded by ns, sub-ns and ps laser
pulses counter-propagating to continuous pump of < 110 W power at 808 nm wavelength. The maximum amplified
power of 44 W and energy of 3.2 mJ has been achieved with ns seed. We observed gain rise to < 75 with ps seed of
1.6 mW average power when tuned emission spectra to ~ 1064.3 nm. Beam propagation coefficient M2 approach 1.2 at
the maximum pump power with high quality seed pulse emitted by 6 ps fiber laser. Amplification of sub-ns seed pulses
from microchip laser led to an M2 increase from ~1.2 to ~< 1.5. New analytical solution for temperature distribution in
end-pumped thin long single crystal fiber with temperature dependent thermal conductivity coefficient is found for
polynomial transverse pump distribution. The analytical relation between thermal coefficients of refractive index at zero
stresses and zero strains is found for YAG type cubic crystals. Using plane strain approximation the analytical expression
for thermal radial and tangential changes of refractive index is found, and the relation between different expressions for
so-called photoelastic constants Cr,θ is established. The methods of numerical calculation of rays and Gaussian beam
propagation in a graded-index medium of active element are developed. The error in widely used formula for M2 of
Gaussian beam with quartic phase aberration is corrected. It is shown that beam quality degradation can be explained by
active thermal lens in power amplifier when changes of transverse beam shape or beam width during amplification are
taken into account.
We demonstrate the possibility of extension of the open aperture Z-scan technique to measurement of nonlinear refractive indices for self-phase modulation and two-color cross-phase modulation
of optical materials by measurement of power-weighted time-averaged propagation factor [M2(t)] of the beam after the sample.
The influence of the temporal shape of the pulse is investigated for two cases: when the pulse peak intensity at the beam waist is known, or when the total energy of the pulse and the duration of the correlation function are known only. Numerical calculations show that the determined values of refraction indices might vary noticeably if the proper pulse shape is not taken into account.
New results of the numerical and experimental investigation of compact solid-state lasers with pulse compression by backward stimulated scattering and multipass laser amplifiers are presented. New models of the master oscillator with the combined passively and actively Q-switched Nd:YAG produce single-mode pulses whose energies are approximately 6 mJ, duration < 2 ns and timing jitter approximately 5 ns. Investigations of Cr4+:YAG crystal bleaching by 150 ps and 2.3 ns long pulses with the Gaussian intensity distribution permitted to obtain more reliable values for ground and excited state absorption cross sections. Application of the active Q-switching with negative feedback enabled to achieve synchronized single-mode pulses with the duration of < 2 ns and the energy of approximately 7 mJ with energy deviations of +/- 1.5% and timing jitter of < 0.5 ns. It is shown that the SBS-compressor filled with heavy fluorocarbons and pumped by amplified (approximately 40 mJ) symmetrical short (approximately 2 ns) pulses can produce the Stokes pulses with 25 mJ energy and the duration as short as 90 ps. A modified Nd:YAG laser with a hybridly Q-switched master oscillator and heavy freon as a Brillouin medium and a multipass Nd:YAG amplifier can generate pulses with the duration of approximately 100 ps and the energy of > 0.6 J at repetition rates of approximately 10 Hz with pulse jitter approximately 1 ns.
Transient changes in absorption of PbS-doped glasses are investigated by means of absorption pump-probe spectroscopy. Two opposite nonlinear effects, bleaching and induced absorption, are observed and their dynamics are investigated in the vicinity of the lowest optical transition of carriers quantum-confined in PbS nanocrystals of different size. Applicability of this composite material as saturable absorber is studied and the nonlinear absorption of the PbS- doped glass is compared with that of solutions of dyes commonly used as saturable absorbers. A potential of utilization of PbS-doped glass in mode locking is discussed and long-time stability of the medium under intense laser irradiation is demonstrated.
The creation of a high-coherence source of frequency- converted laser radiation as needed in multi-colored pulsed- holography requires the use of forward-SRS in the Dicke- narrowed line of hydrogen at low pressures (3 - 4 atm). However, the conversion efficiency of Raman amplifiers is traditionally not sufficient even at high pressure. In this article we report the experimental observation of Stokes pulses having approximately 1 Joule ((lambda) s equals 674 nm, (lambda) PUMP equals 526.5 nm) produced by forward Raman amplification with an energy conversion efficiency of up to 68%, a value close to the theoretical limit of 78%. The results of this study are now being used to produce a simple ultra-high efficiency 2-color Raman laser with parameters suitable for large and small format display holography.
Results of mathematical modeling and experimental investigation of spontaneous soliton generation in forward stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) are reported. The duration of measured soliton pulses varied from 15 to 30 ps corresponding to the relaxation time T2 in compressed methane. The peculiarities of Raman solitons generation under essentially different quasi-steady-state and transient regime of SRS excitation were observed. For pump pulses with duration of 300 ps and Gaussian beam profile the probability of soliton-like pulse observation was only about 0.0034. For longer pump pulses and for pulses with top-hat beam profile that probability was considerably higher. The influence of mutual diffractive focusing of laser and Stokes beams on the process of Raman solitons generation was experimentally confirmed.
The results of the numerical simulation of the laser beam quality changes after propagation through the passive and active optical systems with the linear and nonlinear aberrations are presented. The new algorithm for the calculation of the phase conjugation by steady-state SBS is developed. It is found that the parameter M2 of the Stokes beam in the saturation regime is often nearly the same as that of the pump beam. The generation of short (approximately 1.5 nsec) pulses with energies exceeding 4 mJ has been obtained using passive Q-switching of the short (approximately 10 cm) resonator of Nd:YAG laser by GSGG:Cr,Nd crystals. After SBS-compression the pulses with approximately 120 psec duration and with energies of approximately 1 mJ have been obtained. Four-pass Nd:YAG amplifier amplifies the pulses to the energies approximately 500 mJ with the duration of pulses of approximately 170 psec. Experimentally obtained results are in good agreement with the mathematical modelling of short pulse generation and amplification.
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