Thermal recovery measurements on multisegment amplifiers

We present the results of a series of experiments to measure the thermal recovery times of a flashlamp-pumped, Nd:glass multi-segment laser amplifier. In particular, we investigated the thermal recovery times under the following cooling options: (1) passive cooling, (2) active cooling of the flashlamp cassettes, and (3) active cooling of the flashlamp cassettes and gas flow in the pump cavity.