Multi-joule energy extraction in diode-pumped Tm:YLF

Issa Tamer; Brendan A. Reagan; Thomas Galvin; Justin D. Galbraith; Emily Link; Andrew Church; Glenn Huete; Hansel Neurath; Drew Willard; Thomas Spinka

doi:10.1117/12.2606986

4 March 2022 Multi-joule energy extraction in diode-pumped Tm:YLF

Issa Tamer, Brendan A. Reagan, Thomas Galvin, Justin D. Galbraith, Emily Link, Andrew Church, Glenn Huete, Hansel Neurath, Drew Willard, Thomas Spinka

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 11980, Solid State Lasers XXXI: Technology and Devices; 1198005 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2606986
Event: SPIE LASE, 2022, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

We present the first demonstration of a multi-joule diode-pumped Tm:YLF amplifier. The compact demonstrator setup, consisting of a Tm:YLF-based oscillator producing ~20mJ, 20ns pulses at 1880nm wavelength that seeds a diode pumped four-pass Tm:YLF power amplifier, generated pulse energies up to 3.9J with a maximum net gain exceeding 200. No saturation effects were observed within this amplifier, as the output pulse energies increased exponentially with the input pump power. When the amplifier was seeded with the free-running oscillator, with pulse durations still significantly shorter than the 15ms radiative lifetime of Tm:YLF, energies of up to 38J were achieved. To the best of our knowledge, this represents over a 100-fold improvement in the highest reported pulse energy from a Tm:YLF amplifier, and nearly an order of magnitude higher energy than any laser operating near 2μm. These results show that Tm:YLF, when operated in an efficient high repetition rate extraction regime and combined with a high-capacity heat removal technique, has the potential to enable a new class of efficient, high peak and average power laser systems to meet the demands of next generation scientific and industrial applications.

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Issa Tamer, Brendan A. Reagan, Thomas Galvin, Justin D. Galbraith, Emily Link, Andrew Church, Glenn Huete, Hansel Neurath, Drew Willard, and Thomas Spinka "Multi-joule energy extraction in diode-pumped Tm:YLF", Proc. SPIE 11980, Solid State Lasers XXXI: Technology and Devices, 1198005 (4 March 2022); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2606986

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