Abstract
The development of high-power diode lasers enabled new solid-state laser concepts such as thin-disk, fiber, and Innoslab lasers based on trivalent ytterbium as the laser-active ion, which resulted in a tremendous increase in the efficiency and beam quality of cw lasers compared to previously used lamp-pumped rod or slab lasers and the realization of ultrafast lasers with several 100 W or even kilowatts of average power. In addition to their beneficial thermo-optical properties, these architectures offer characteristic benefits making them especially suitable to obtain dedicated laser properties. This review article comprises milestone developments, characteristic challenges, and benefits, and summarizes the state of the art of high-power solid-state lasers with the focus on ultrafast lasers.
Highlights
In retrospect, it is quite amazing that most of the important concepts in the fields of lasers and nonlinear optics have been proposed within a couple of years since the realization of the first laser
This drawback was solved by electro-optically controlled Divided pulse amplification (DPA) (EDPA) [190], which allows for phase and amplitude pre-shaping of the individual pulse to increase the combination efficiency
Since the effective focal length of the thermally induced distortions was close to the length of the rods, several rods were arranged as a kind of lens chain in the resonator of multi-kW lasers
Summary
It is quite amazing that most of the important concepts in the fields of lasers and nonlinear optics have been proposed within a couple of years since the realization of the first laser. The resulting two electronic levels, 2F7/2 and 2F5/2 (spin parallel/antiparallel to the orbital momentum), are further split by the crystal field of a host on the order of several hundreds of inverse centimeters or several kBT at room temperature and broadened by coupling with acoustic and optical phonons. This system has a number of advantages, the only real disadvantage being the thermal population of the lower laser level of 4% at room temperature according to the Boltzmann factor exp(− ΔE/kBT). Still for Nd3+, Ueda and Uehara [6] proposed the active mirror design (see Fig. 1b; later called 'thin-disk laser') for diode-pumped lasers and alternatively the fiber laser as the
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