Flash-lamp-excited self-injection-seeded Q-switched Ti:Al(2)O(3) laser oscillator

A self-injection-seeded, flash-lamp-excited, Q-switched laser oscillator is presented. The laser comprises two resonators that are operated sequentially. The first resonator, which includes all the high insertion loss, damage prone, wavelength tuning, and line-narrowing components, is used to generate the seed signal. The second resonator is a low-loss, Q-switched resonator whose output wavelength and line width are controlled by the seed signal. Output pulses of energy as high as 325 mJ have been obtained that are tunable over a range of the order of 90 nm and with a bandwidth of the order of 0.05 nm.