High Energy, High Peak Power 1342-nm Picosecond Nd:YVO4 Regenerative Amplifier

We report on a high energy, high peak power 1342-nm Nd:YVO4 picosecond (ps) regenerative amplifier under 880-nm laser-diode (LD) in-band pumping operating from 1 to 10 kHz. The maximum average output power of 1.62 W was obtained with the repetition rate of 10 kHz and the pulse width of 44.9 ps. The corresponding pulse energy and the peak power were up to 0.162 mJ and 3.61 MW with a total optical gain as high as 6.5 x 10(5). The laser beam quality factor of M-2 was measured to be 1.75 at the full output power. The maximum pulse energy of 0.243 mJ and the maximum peak power of 5.55 MW were obtained at 1 kHz, resulting in its total optical gain of 9.7 x 10(5). This is the highest pulse energy and the highest peak power for LD-pumped high-beam-quality 1342-nm ps lasers with kilohertz repetition rate reported to date.