Patent ID: 7535633

Claim:
A solid-state laser amplifier system, comprising: a) at least one laser-active solid having dimensions length L 1 , width W 1 , and thickness t 1 ; b) a pumping light source; c) light beam shaping optical system positioned adjacent to the pumping light source for shaping and directing a pump light beam from said pumping light source into a first surface of said at least one laser-active solid with an elliptical, round, or rectangular beam of light with a length or long axis L 1 ′ and a width of W 1 ′ satisfying a condition L 1 ′/W 1 ′≧1, and L 1 ′<L 1 and width W 1 ′<W 1, and wherein a region of said at least one laser-active solid illuminated by the beam of light produces a pumped gain region defined by dimensions L 1 ′×W 1 ′×t 1 of said at least one laser-active solid, and wherein t 1 is in a range from 10 microns to 1millimeter so as to most strongly localize the absorbed light and ensuing pumped gain region that develops from pumping said at least one laser-active solid with said pump light; d) a cooling device, wherein the laser-active solid is slab-shaped and is fixedly connected at a second surface thereof to the cooling device, and wherein a major portion of heat generated in the laser-active solid by the pump light is removed by the cooling device to cool the second surface of the laser-active solid and, wherein the slab-shaped laser active solid includes periodically disposed channels of length between about 0.1 micron to about 100 microns, said channels being filled with an absorbing material or scattering centers to introduce regions of absorption and scattering losses along a direction defined by L 1 and prevent accumulated stimulate emission along the L 1 ′ pumped region from depleting the gain in this direction and accompanying reduction in pulse guality for use in the amplification of laser pulses; and e) an optical system configured to bring the laser beam to be amplified into the laser active solid at an angle to a normal to the first surface of the laser active solid to remove substantially nonparallel isotherms that arise from nonuniform pumping of the laser active solid by the pump light beam and cooling requirements to achieve high gain conditions for the laser beam.