Injection-Seeded 500 Hz Repetition Rate High Peak Power Single-Frequency Nd:YAG Laser for Mid-Infrared Generation

We develop an injection-seeded single-frequency neodymium-doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) laser with 500 Hz repetition rate and high peak power. The laser construction is designed as seed injection and master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) including single-frequency master oscillator, extra-cavity frequency doubling crystal, and round-trip power amplifier. The master oscillator can emit 1,064 nm laser of 8.4 mJ with 6.8 ns pulse width at the pump energy equal to 23 mJ. A green laser energy of 1.1 mJ is obtained by setting the proper temperature of the LBO crystal. The pulse energy of 1,064 nm laser decreases to 6.5 mJ after passing through the LBO crystal and rises to 25.3 mJ after a round-trip power amplifier corresponding to the extraction efficiency of 29%. The final output pulse width is 6.5 ns, representing a peak power of 3.9 MW. The 1,064 nm laser beam quality factor M2 of the master oscillator and the amplified one are 1.3 and 1.5, respectively. The laser will be used to generate mid-infrared where the 532 nm laser with narrow pulse width is to pump sheet optical parametric oscillator (OPO) and the 1,064 nm laser with high peak power to pump the OPO.