High peak power output, high PRF by cavity dumping a Nd:YAG laser

Intracavity modation of a Nd:YAG laser at high dumping efficiencies was achieved by driving an acoustooptic quartz modulator with 100 W of rf input power at 450 MHz. Stable output pulses of 25-nsec width and peak powers as high as 570 W were obtained at repetition frequencies up to 2 MHz. It is shown that the oscillation of the circulating laser power in the presence of a perturbation determines the dynamics of cavity dumping and sets a lower limit to the pulse repetition frequency of approximately 200 kHz.