An apparatus and method for a passively Q-switched microlaser (10) for producing high-peak-power pulses of light of extremely shortduration are disclosed. The apparatus comprises a gain medium (12) and saturable absorber (14) disposed within a laser cavity (16, 18).When the cavity (16, 18) is pumped, the saturable absorber (14) prevents the onset of lasing until the inversion density within the cavity(16, 18) reaches a critical value. The length of the cavity (16, 18), the material parameters, and the reflectivities of the mirrors (16, 18) areselected such that pulses of duration less than about 1 ns and of peak power in excess of about 10 kW are obtained. The invention hasapplication in high-precision optical radar, nonlinear optics, micromachining, microsurgery, robotic vision, and other technologies requiringhigh-peak-power laser pulses of extremely short duration.
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