STABILITY OF THE OUTPUT ENERGY OF PULSED SOLID-STATE LASERS UNDER PASSIVE Q-SWITCHING BY MEANS OF LIF CRYSTALS WITH F2- COLOR-CENTERS

Stability of the output energy of pulsed solid-state neodymium-glass (GLS-24P) and YAG:Nd lasers with passive Q-switching (emission bandwidth at the second-harmonic frequency is 9 and 0.2 cm-1 respectively) has been studied as a function of stability of the pump source, resonator length and the number of pulses. A dependence of the output energy on the pump energy has been measured within the range from a threshold of appearance of the first pulse to the threshold of appearance of the second pulse. It is shown experimentally that the short-term stability of the output energy (the relative variance from the sample of 500 pulses) can be not worse than 0.2%. Under described experimental conditions a drop in the output energy within 18000 pulses amounted to the value which is not more than 10 %. This drop is explained by the damage to F2- color centers upon exposure to the high-power lasing radiation and by a growth in the initial shutter transmittance.