High-efficiency multipass optical limiter.

We report experimental results on a highly efficient optical limiter that uses a three-mirror, multipass ring configuration. The optical limiter's enhanced performance is based on the accumulative effect that is achieved when the laser beam passes through the sample several consecutive times. Its feasibility was demonstrated for media with different limiting action processes, namely, reverse saturable absorption, nonlinear scattering, and thermal lensing. We employed a frequency-doubled, Q-switched, 10-ns Nd:YAG laser operating at a 5-Hz repetition rate.