PRELASE STABILIZATION OF THE POLARIZATION STATE AND FREQUENCY OF A Q-SWITCHED, DIODE-PUMPED, ND-YAG LASER

摘要

We present an experimental investigation of the energy statistics of the linear polarization components of pulses from a Nd:YAG laser that is repetitively Q-switched with an acousto-optic modulator. Varying the modulator-induced diffraction losses leads to changes in the pulse polarization state and the energy statistics of the polarization components. For conventional Q-snitching there is no laser oscillation during the low-Q intervals, and we find that the orthogonal components of the pulses can display large relative energy fluctuations even though the total pulse energy is quite stable. In the prelase mode, a weak continuous-wave background seeds the Q-switched pulses and results in the emission of highly linearly polarized, single-longitudinal-mode pulses with small relative energy fluctuations. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America [References: 25]