High-average-power, long-pulse-length solid-state illuminator laser for high-resolution imaging

Summary form only given. We have recently reported a laser amplification technique that allows pulses of up to 1 /spl mu/s in duration to be efficiently generated from a master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA) geometry. The incorporation of very low threshold SBS phase conjugation using Brillouin-enhanced four wave mixing provides near-diffraction limited divergence and the output pulses can be frequency-doubled to 527 nm with >50% total external conversion efficiency. We have applied this technology to a high-average-power laser system designed as an illuminator for high-resolution speckle imaging (HRI) of distant objects through the turbulent atmosphere. The laser incorporates four flash lamp pumped Nd:glass zig-zag laser amplifers.