Diode-pumped, thermally-edge-controlled slab laser with high-energy and large-aperture

High-peak and high-average power diode-pumped solid-state laser is one of the most useful pump sources for high-intensity laser-driven applications as well as inertial fusion energy. Zig-zag slab scheme has a potential to scale up to the orders of giga-watt in peak power and kilo-watt in average power simultaneously, because of its availability of larger aperture and higher cooling capability. Diode-pumped Nd:YLF regenerative ring amplifier is amplified by a double pass through the left slab amplifier up to 3 J, before the beam is optically expand to the full aperture of a slab amplifier by the anamorphic telescope, and it is cut out by the rectangular serrated aperture of 0.8 cm wide/spl times/4.8 cm high. The laser pulse passes the slabs four times each in two symmetrical paths. Finally the output pulse is ejected by a thin-film polarizer.