A laser light source is disclosed having a laser oscillator producing an output beam; a first amplifier amplifying the output beam to produce a first amplified beam, and a second amplifier amplifying the first amplified beam to produce a second amplified beam. For the source, the first amplifier may have a gain medium characterized by a saturation energy (E.sub.s, 1) and a small signal gain (g.sub.o, 1); and the second amplifier may have a gain medium characterized by a saturation energy (E.sub.s, 2) and a small signal gain (g.sub.o, 2), with (g.sub.o, 1)>(g.sub.o, 2) and (E.sub.s, 2)>(E.sub.s, 1). In another aspect, a laser oscillator of a laser light source may be a cavity dumped laser oscillator, e.g. a mode-locked laser oscillator, q-switched laser oscillator and may further comprising a temporal pulse stretcher.