Study of gain dynamics and temporal jitter effects in copper vapor laser oscillator-amplifier chain

Effect of temporal jitter on the performance of copper vapor laser (CVL) master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) chain using Monte-Carlo techniques was studied. The MOPA chain comprised an oscillator and five amplification stages. Amplification of CVL signal in each amplifier stage was modeled using rate equation based optical model. The effect of temporal jitter on the pulse energy stability in CVL MOPA chain was estimated for various jitter values. Our studies show that the pulse energy spread and the pulse energy instability increases with increase in jitter which in turn depends on the gain pulse width and the jitter considered. Pulse to pulse gain variation in CVL MOPA chain was studied along with temporal jitter. The acceptable tolerance limit on temporal jitter is +/-4 ns for a pulse energy stability of 5% of CVL MOPA chain. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.