High compact, high quality single longitudinal mode hundred picoseconds laser based on stimulated Brillouin scattering pulse compression

Abstract

A high beam quality hundred picoseconds single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) laser is demonstrated based on stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) pulse compression and aberration compensation. Flash-lamp-pumped Q-switched Nd3+:Y3Al5O12 (Nd:YAG) SLM laser with Cr4+:Y3Al5O12] (Cr4+:YAG) as a saturable absorber is used as the seed source. By combining master-oscillator-power-amplifier (MOPA), a compact single-cell with FC-770 as working medium is generated as pulse compressor. The 7.8 ns SLM laser is temporally compressed to about 450 ps, and 200 mJ energy is obtained at 1064 nm without optical damage. The energy stability is better than 3% with beam quality factor M2 less than 1.8, which makes this laser system an attractive source for scientific and industrial applications.