Nd:YAG single-crystal fiber as high peak power amplifier of pulses below one nanosecond.

We explore the potential of Nd:YAG single-crystal fibers for the amplification of passively Q-switched microlasers operating below 1 ns. Different regimes are tested in single or double pass configurations. For high gain and high power amplification this novel gain medium provided average powers up to 20 W at high repetition rate (over 40 kHz) for a pulse duration of 1 ns. As an energy amplifier, Nd:YAG single-crystal fiber delivered 2.7 mJ, 6 MW 450 ps pulses at 1 kHz. The extraction efficiencies vary from 8% to 32.7% following the configurations.

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