Abstract

Intensive use of laser guide stars with the new generation of extremely large telescopes and hypertelescopes will require the use of more efficient lasers to surmount novel limitations and aberrations. The pulsed frequency-shifted feedback (FSF) laser we have developed overcomes the saturation of sodium atoms and solves the new problems. This work presents a highly efficient solution for operating pulsed FSF lasers. For the first time, an intracavity preamplifier achieves a gain of ${10}^4$ and more than $40\mathrm{\mu J}$ per pulse, with a near-diffraction-limited beam and without amplified spontaneous emission. Endurance tests have shown that good performance is maintained over several hundred hours.

© 2011 Optical Society of America

Efficient modeless laser for a mesospheric sodium laser guide star

Jean-Paul Pique and Sébastien Farinotti
J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 20(10) 2093-2101 (2003)

Return flux budget of polychromatic laser guide stars

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Beat-note locking in dual-polarization lasers submitted to frequency-shifted optical feedback

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Dynamics of frequency shifted feedback lasers: simulation studies

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Suppression of Rayleigh scattering noise in sodium laser guide stars by hyperfine depolarization of fluorescence

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