Methods for increasing the efficiency of solid Raman lasers

It is shown theoretically that an efficient solid Raman laser capable of withstanding the action of high power radiation can be built by satisfying certain conditions, which follow from the theory of stimulated Raman scattering and from studies of the optical strength of Raman-active crystals. A prototype calcite Raman laser was found to have an efficiency of 37% in the conversion of the energy of the pump radiation pulses (λ = 0.53μ) into the first three Stokes components. The total power of all three components was 13.5 MW, the beam divergence was 11', and the duration of the output pulses was 20 nsec. The elements of this laser withstood several hundreds of shots without any sign of damage.