Generation of pulsed laser radiation at a finely controlled frequency by transient regerative amplification

Abstract

A pulsed laser system capable of producing pulses of radiation at relatively high peak power at a single resonator mode, said system comprising a master laser oscillator capable of producing a beam of radiation at a desired frequency to be introduced to a power laser, a radiation-responsive pulsed power laser oscillator including an optical resonator formed by a set of reflectors, said laser adapted to receive periodic application of a voltage pulse, said optical resonator arranged to receive said introduced beam at least during the periodic application of said voltage pulse to said power laser whereby the frequency of radiation emitted by said power laser can be determined by the frequency of said introduced beam, monitoring means acting between pulses of said power laser to optically monitor the resonator cavity of said power laser to determine the frequency of the resonator mode of said power laser and produce a signal dependent upon said frequency, and stabilizing means responsive to said signal of said monitoring means to maintain the center frequency of the mode of said power laser in close coincidence with the frequency of said master oscillator. By use of a tunable master oscillator and unique means for maintaining the mode of the master oscillator and power laser oscillator in near coincidence, a relatively high peak power tunable pulsed laser system is achieved. By use of the output of the power laser as probing radiation a unique Lidar system is achieved. Important further arrangements for achieving the above are also presented.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.