Thin tapered rod Yb:YAG laser amplifier.
The concept of the thin tapered rod Yb:YAG amplifier with waveguide pumping is proposed and implemented. It is shown that such an amplifier demonstrates considerably higher small signal gain and is less affected by thermal effects than the thin rod "single crystal fiber" amplifier. In the developed amplifier, a small signal gain as high as 23 per pass is achieved.
Optics letters