New designs and simulations of a 10-kW average-power longitudinally pumped dye laser amplifier.
New designs of a 10-kW average-power longitudinally pumped dye laser amplifier pumped by a copper laser and its operating simulations are presented. The new designs, which use a center-hole mirror, make it possible to pump longitudinally without dichroic mirrors. The simulations take into consideration the time-dependent excited-state absorption of both the laser and the pump beam. Dye laser amplifiers, with an input dye laser average power of 10 kW, are simulated. The simulation results suggest that a better than 50% extraction efficiency can be obtained with two pump beams of more than 1 kW. The results also suggest that an amplified gain of 10 with an extraction efficiency of approximately 50% can be obtained with the double-pass amplifier.