High average power, picosecond pulse Nd-lasers

Recent advances into the design and growth of high damage threshold semiconductor saturable absorber devices have enabled the realisation of a new class of high average power, diode array laser pumped Nd-based lasers. The robust operation of these modelocked laser sources shows great promise for their use in a wide range of applications. Over the course of the last four years, power scaling of cw passively modelocked Nd-lasers has been actively researched, with the initial power levels of a few hundred milliwatts being transformed into the multi-watt, and now the multi-10's of watts regime. 100W and above represent the next major milestone. In this paper we will review the evolution of these developments, the state of the art, and look forward to assess the prospects for further development in this area.