Flashlamp-pumped Cr:LiSAF thin-slab zigzag laser

We report on the operation of a flashlamp-pumped Cr:LiSAF thin-slab zigzag laser where single-pulse output energies to 6.4 J have been achieved. This thin-slab configuration is capable of scaling to high average power. At lower energy, beam quality about twice the diffraction limit was measured for a Q-switched pulse. The laser has been tuned from 800 to 900 nm and the bandwidth narrowed to about 8 GHz.