Regenerative amplification of picosecond 10-μm pulses in a high-pressure optically pumped CO2 laser

Abstract

A model is developed and numerical calculations are performed for the regenerative amplification of seed picosecond 10-μm radiation pulses in a high-pressure optically pumped CO2 laser. It is established that by varying the cavity parameters, the conditions of efficient regenerative amplification may be optimised for the case of a relatively short-duration (50 ns) solid-state Cr:Er:YSGG laser and 'long-duration' (250 ns) electrodischarge chemical HF laser. It is shown that the schemes of a CO2 amplifier with optical pumping presented allow obtaining the pulses with the duration of 3ps, output energy of 1–5 mJ, and peak power of ∼1 GW at the pump energy of 150–200 mJ.