EFFICIENT, COMPACT, KILOWATT-CLASS ND:YAG LASERS WITH SUBNANOSECOND PULSE DURATION

THE OBJECTIVE OF THIS SBIR PROGRAM IS TO DEVELOP A NEW COMPACT ND:YAG SLAB LASER AMPLIFIER ARCHITECTURE WHICH INCREASES LASER EFFICIENCY AND THE EXTRACTABLE ENERGY FROM A SINGLE LASER SLAB BY A FACTOR OF 1.6. IN ADDITION, IMPLEMENTATION OF CHIRPED PULSE AMPLIFICATION TECHNIQUES IN A NANOSECOND PULSE REGIME CAN LEAD TO THE EFFICIENT GENERATION OF SUBNANOSECOND OUTPUT PULSES IN A COMPACT AND EFFICIENT DEVICE WITH IMPROVED RELIABILITY BY LIMITING PEAK FLUENCE LEVELS WITHIN THE CRYSTAL. IN THE PHASE I EFFORT, A 20 GW PEAK, 150 WATT AVERAGE POWER, DIODE-PUMPED ND:YAG SLAB LASER MODULE WILL BE DESIGNED WHICH INCORPORATES THE NEW LASER ARCHITECTURE AND SUBNANOSECOND OUTPUT PULSE CAPABILITY. PROOF-OF-PRINCIPLE EXPERIMENTS WILL ALSO BE DESIGNED IN PHASE I TO VALIDATE THESE NEW ND:YAG LASER CONCEPTS. THESE VALIDATION EXPERIMENTS WILL THEN BE CONDUCTED USING A FLASHLAMP-PUMPED HEAD IN THE PHASE II EFFORT. THIS TECHNOLOGY CAN BE SCALED TO PROVIDE COMPACT, LIGHTWEIGHT, EFFICIENT 70 GW PEAK POWER, 500 WATT AVERAGE POWER, DIODE PUMPED ND:YAG LASERS. THE UNIQUE COMBINATION OF 10 JOULE SINGLE PULSE ENERGY, 100 PICOSECOND PULSE DURATION AND HIGH PULSE REPETITION RATES WILL PERMIT HIGH THROUGHPUT WITH LASER DRIVEN X-RAY SOURCES FOR SUB-0.25 MICROSECOND X-RAY LITHOGRAPHY AND ENHANCED TRACKING RATES FOR HIGH RESOLUTION SPACE-BASED LASER RADAR.