7-W, 2-cycle self-compressed pulses at 2.1 micron from a Ho:YAG thin disk laser oscillator

Abstract

High peak power, few cycle pulses at 2 um are highly sought after for their ability to generate ultrabroad, passively CEP stabilized continua in the mid-infrared (IR) [1] using highly nonlinear non-oxide crystals, which promises numerous applications in physics, environmental and life sciences. Recently, a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ho:YAG thin disk (based on TRUMPF technology) oscillator has directly generated high power femtosecond pulses at 2.1 micron [2], and the output can be further compressed for applications requiring few-cycle pulses. Soliton self-compression is an elegant scheme that can deliver such pulses directly from the fiber, and has previously been applied to pulse compression of a Yb:YAG thin-disk oscillator [3] and to ∼2 micron fiber sources [4,5]. Here we demonstrate the compression of 260 fs pulses down to 15 fs using a silica glass fiber, delivering, to the best of our knowledge, the shortest pulses from any holmium or thulium-based laser system.