Amplification of a low-power picosecond Nd:YVO4 laser by a diode-laser side-pumped grazing-incidence slab amplifier

An optimized diode-laser side-pumped grazing-incidence Nd:YVO4 amplifier was used to increase the power of a 50-mW, 150-MHz cw-pumped mode-locked oscillator up to 6.1 W in single pass, with 22% optical-to-optical efficiency, or up to 8.4 W in double pass, with 30% efficiency. Both beam quality (M2<1.4 from TEM00 seed pulses) and pulse duration (7.5 ps from 6.9 ps) was preserved. Single- or double-pass small-signal gain greater than 40 dB was achieved. These experimental results have been corroborated by a numerical model analysis of the amplifier