High-performance cavity-dumped Q-switched Alexandrite laser CW diode-pumped in double-pass configuration.

We present a high-performance Alexandrite laser for LIDAR applications with repetition rates up to 20 kHz in cavity-dumped Q-switched operation continuous-wave diode-pumped in the red spectral region. With a double-pass pump configuration, short pulses with 2.8 ns duration at repetition frequencies ranging from 1 kHz to 20 kHz could be demonstrated.