Diode-pumped medium-aperture-size square Nd,Y:CaF2 rod amplifier for Inertial Confinement Fusion laser drivers

We demonstrate, for the first time, an 12 mm × 12 mm 0.5%Nd,5% Y:CaF2 crystal rod having a uniformly-distributed fluorescence spectrum and capable of operating as an amplifying medium at high repetition frequencies. A small gain of 2.7 is experimentally achieved at repetition frequency of 10 Hz for a pump center wavelength of 802 nm, power and absorption efficiency, 61.2 kW and 63.7%, respectively. Spatial-uniformity degradation of the output near-field beam distribution is observed, which should be attributed to the inhomogeneity of Nd,Y:CaF2 crystal. For a pump power of 61.2 kW, the stored energy of Nd,Y:CaF2 amplifier is 3.73 J. When the input energy is 50 mJ, the output laser energy is 1.4 J of extraction efficiency up to 37.53% after four-pass amplification.