Fig. 1. Experimental setup for an Nd:YAG dual-cavity master oscillator.

Fig. 2. (Color online) Output power (P1) of the TEM00, LG01, and quasi-top-hat beams from the Nd:YAG dual-cavity master oscillator as a function of incident pump power.

Fig. 3. (Color online) Temporal modulation of the output beam profiles due to the AOM on/off. The power was measured at the center and the edge of the beam at repetition rates of (a) 1 and (b) 100 Hz. The insets are the measured transverse intensity distribution by the CCD camera.

Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of the master oscillator and the three-stage Nd:YVO4 power amplifier system.

Fig. 5. (Color online) Output power from the three-stage amplifier as a function of incident pump power. The signal input power was fixed to 0.5 W regardless of the beam profile.

Fig. 6. (Color online) (a) Output beam profiles, (b) theoretical and measured transverse intensity distributions for top-hat, TEM00, and LG01 mode beams, and (c) the measured beam qualities after the master oscillator and each amplifier stage at the maximum output power.