Generation of tailored pulse trains for efficient material processing by a high power MOPA system with birefringence compensation
✍ Scribed by T. Riesbeck
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2008
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 161 KB
- Volume
- 5
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1612-2011
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✦ Synopsis
A flash lamp pumped, acousto-optical Q-switched Nd:YAG master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) system with an average output power of almost 150 W and a beam quality of M^2^ < 2.5 is developed. The system operates with a 100 Hz repetition rate for the flash lamps. In each pumping pulse a pulse train of 5 to 40 Q-switched laser pulses is generated. The pulse length is from 25 to 150 ns. A high beam quality of the amplified beam is realized by an elaborate amplifier design and a careful alignment of the beam diameter to the amplifier rods. Additionally, the thermally induced birefringence of the amplifiers is compensated by a 90° rotator and an optical image-relay system between two identical amplifier rods, so that a linear polarized laser beam could be achieved with depolarization losses below 2%.