Efficiency of wide-aperture amplifiers with prism active elements

An investigation was made of the feasibility of constructing wide-aperture laser amplifiers from prism active elements made of neodymium-activated glass. Calculations were carried out and experiments confirmed the main energy characteristics of such amplifiers. The influence of thermooptic distortions on the laser radiation wavefront was negligible. The efficiency of storage of the excitation energy in such amplifiers was ~ 1.7% when the density of the inversion energy was ~ 0.5 J/cm³.