Abstract
Thermal lens shaping for astigmatism compensation is extended to a high-power, diode-pumped, Yb:KGW laser by employing a gain crystal geometry designed for efficient polarized pumping. The 63MHz oscillator is soliton mode-locked with the aid of a saturable Bragg reflector to yield 250fs (347fs) pulses at an output power of 3.5W (5W). Frequency doubling of the 250fs pulses with an intrinsic efficiency >60% provides 1.65W of average green power.
Highlights
Ytterbium-doped potassium gadolinium tungstate (Yb:KGd(WO4)2 or Yb:KGW) is becoming a widely used solid-state gain medium for ultrafast laser systems
The laser head design is based on the thermal lens shaping (TLS) technique we developed for astigmatism compensation in diode-pumped Nd-doped lasers with Brewster-cut gain media [16]
The design of our laser head follows the example of Holtom [5], which ensures efficient pumping and access to the broadest emission bandwidth of Yb:KGW, while employing the thermal lens shaping (TLS) technique to compensate for astigmatism [16]
Summary
Ytterbium-doped potassium gadolinium tungstate (Yb:KGd(WO4) or Yb:KGW) is becoming a widely used solid-state gain medium for ultrafast laser systems. As is the case for Yb-doped potassium yttrium tungstate (Yb:KYW) [12,13], mode-locked Yb:KGW lasers should ideally oscillate with radiation polarized parallel to the optical Np-axis to access the broadest gain bandwidth around 1040nm, where the emission cross-section is comparable to that along the optical Nm-axis [5,11] This optimal requirement for orthogonal linear pump and laser polarizations led Holtom [5] to employ a polarization-coupling scheme to diode pump longitudinally a 10W, sub-500fs, Yb:KGW laser. The coherent control of photoemission through visible laser-driven plasmon excitations on large-area (a few mm2), gold or silver, nano-patterned photocathodes may provide a mechanism by which this can be achieved [25]
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