Patent ID: 8717670

Claim:
A method of generating laser pulses from a laser system having fiber amplifier comprising the steps of: supplying a first sequence of seed pulses to the fiber amplifier, said sequence including a series of first signal pulses having a first pulse width and a first repetition frequency, said first sequence further including a plurality of first idler pulses between each first signal pulse in the series, with the peak power of the first idler pulses being less than half the peak power of the first signal pulses; and supplying a second sequence of seed pulses to the fiber amplifier, said second sequence including a series of second signal pulses having a second pulse width and a second repetition frequency with one of said second pulse width and said second repetition frequency being different from the first pulse width and the first repetition frequency, said second sequence further including a plurality of second idler pulses between each second signal pulses in the series, with the peak power of the second idler pulses being less than half the peak power of the second signal pulses and wherein the time averaged power of the second sequence of pulses is within twenty five percent of the time averaged power of the first sequence of pulses.