Patent ID: 8792157

Claim:
A Raman lasing system, comprising: a pump laser and a cascaded Raman resonator, wherein the pump laser has a master oscillator power amplifier configuration, comprising an oscillator for generating an oscillator output, and an amplifier for receiving the oscillator output as an input and generating therefrom an amplified output at a selected wavelength, and wherein the cascaded Raman resonator receives the amplified output as an input and generates therefrom an output having a selected target wavelength; wherein the pump laser further comprises a wavelength-dependent loss element, connected between the oscillator and the amplifier, for preventing damage to the oscillator resulting from backward propagation of light from the amplifier and cascaded Raman resonator into the oscillator, whereby the power limit requirements for the wavelength-dependent loss element depend upon the power level of the oscillator output, and whereby the system is scalable to have amplifier and cascaded Raman resonator outputs with power levels exceeding the power limits of the wavelength-dependent loss element.