title: Compensation of pulse-distortion in saturated laser amplifiers.
abstract: We derive an expression describing pre-compensation of pulse-distortion due to saturation effects in short pulse laser-amplifiers. The analytical solution determines the optimum input pulse-shape required to obtain any arbitrary target pulse-shape at the output of the saturated laser-amplifier. The relation is experimentally verified using an all-fiber amplifier chain that is seeded by a directly modulated laser-diode. The method will prove useful in applications of high power, high energy laser-amplifier systems that need particular pulse-shapes to be efficient, e.g. micromachining and scientific laser-matter-interactions.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Applied Physics, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany. damian.schimpf@uni-jena.de
authors.forename: Damian N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Schimpf
authors.forename: Clemens
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Ruchert
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Nodop
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Limpert
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tünnermann
authors.forename: Francois
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Salin