A reliable low-maintenance flashlamp-pumped Ti:sapphire laser operating at 120 PPS
Flashlamp-pumped Ti:sapphire lasers have been reported to produce high-energy pulses with broad tunability. However, with the flashlamps operated close to their explosion energy, and thermal loading effects in the laser rod, these lasers were restricted to low repetition rates (typically around 10 PPS). Higher repetition rates at constant laser pulse energy reduce the flashlamp lifetime drastically. The author reports on a reliable flashlamp-pumped Ti:sapphire laser that has been operating at 120 PPS for over 10{sup 9} shots with the only cavity or pump chamber maintenance being flashlamp changes less than every 2{times}10{sup 8} pulses -- the lowest maintenance reported. A specular dual-lamp pump chamber was used to pump a 4 mm {times} 6 inches, 0.1% doped Ti:sapphire rod. This resulted in a very low lasing threshold, which ensured a stable output at low pump levels. The criterion for pump power was to obtain a highly stable output at the edge of the selected tuning range, from 790 to 860 nm. The combination of flashlamp walls, flashlamp flow tubes, and rod solarization.
- Research Organization:
- Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC03-76SF00515
- OSTI ID:
- 10136536
- Report Number(s):
- SLAC-PUB-6443; CONF-931237-9; ON: DE94009030
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: LASERS `93: international conference on lasers and applications,Lake Tahoe, NV (United States),6-10 Dec 1993; Other Information: PBD: Mar 1994
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Chirped-Pulse Amplification with flashlamp-pumped Ti:Sapphire amplifiers. Revision 1
Army Solid State Laser Program: Design, Operation, and Mission Analysis for a Heat-Capacity Laser