The neodymium doped glass laser

Neodyme doped glass laser is one of the most used in the world to study the interaction laser-matter in dense and hot plasmas and to carry out experiments to realize the controlled thermonuclear fusion. The principle of this laser is presented and its working is studied. Non linear effects and self focalisation phenomena are observed. The general settling of chains of high energy lasers is described and the part of the different composantes is analysed: oscillators, devices to form the pulse shape, device to control the spatial quality of the beam, antireturn devices. A table presenting the mean characteristics of neodyme lasers operating either in the USA (Lawrence Livermore Laboratory) or in Great Britain (Rutherford Lab.) or in Soviet Union (Lebedev Institut) or in Japan or in France (Research Center of Limeil) is presented on the conclusion