High-energy and high average power thin-rod and thin-tapered-rod Yb:YAG laser amplifiers

Abstract

8 mJ pulse energy is achieved at the output of the thin-rod Yb:YAG laser amplifier at 1.5 kHz repetition rate that is more than 3 times surpasses the previous record for this geometry due to the higher quality of the crystal coatings. It is proposed to use thin-tapered-rod active elements for further energy scaling simultaneously with average power increasing and beam quality preserving.