Fast-switching system for injection seeding of a high-power Ti:sapphire laser

A high frequency switching and tunable seed laser system has been designed and constructed for injection seeding of a high-power pulsed Ti:sapphire laser. The whole laser system operates as the transmitter of a scanning, ground-based, water-vapor differential absorption lidar (DIAL). The output of two seed lasers can be tuned in the wavelength range of 815-840 nm up to the power of 20 mW and switched between the online and offline wavelengths of the DIAL at frequencies of 0-1 kHz. The frequency stability of online and offline seed lasers is better than +/-20 MHz rms and the mode-hop-free tuning range is greater than 40 GHz with external cavity diode lasers. The advantage of this system for efficient injection seeding of the Ti:sapphire cavity is that it is modular, robust, fully fiber-coupled, and polarization maintaining.