Abstract
We report on two pulse compressors for a high-power thin disk laser oscillator using rod-type fiber amplifiers. Both systems are seeded by a standard SESAM modelocked thin disk laser that delivers 16 W of average power at a repetition rate of 10.6 MHz with a pulse energy of 1.5 μJ and a pulse duration of 1 ps. We discuss two results with different fiber parameters with different trade-offs in pulse duration, average power, damage and complexity. The first amplifier setup consists of a Yb-doped fiber amplifier with a 2200 μm2 core area and a length of 55 cm, resulting in a compressed average power of 55 W with 98-fs pulses at a repetition rate of 10.6 MHz. The second system uses a shorter 36-cm fiber with a larger core area of 4500 μm2. In a stretcher-free configuration we obtained 34 W of compressed average power and 65-fs pulses. In both cases peak powers of > 30 MW were demonstrated at several μJ pulse energies. The power scaling limitations due to damage and self-focusing are discussed.
Highlights
Modelocked thin disk lasers using a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) [1,2] for passive pulse formation are currently one of best-suited technologies for ultrafast highpower laser oscillators [3,4,5]
Pulse compression of a SESAM modelocked high-power thin disk laser has been demonstrated using a short passive LMA fiber where 32 W and 24 fs pulses were demonstrated at MHz repetition rate [23,24]
The initially 760-fs long pulses were compressed at 50% efficiency by a factor of thirty, while the peak power was increased by a factor of ten
Summary
Modelocked thin disk lasers using a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) [1,2] for passive pulse formation are currently one of best-suited technologies for ultrafast highpower laser oscillators [3,4,5]. Pulse compression of a SESAM modelocked high-power thin disk laser has been demonstrated using a short passive LMA fiber where 32 W and 24 fs pulses were demonstrated at MHz repetition rate [23,24] In this experiment, the initially 760-fs long pulses were compressed at 50% efficiency by a factor of thirty, while the peak power was increased by a factor of ten. In a second system no pulse stretcher was required using a 36-cm rod-type fiber amplifier with a larger core area of 4500 μm2 With this setup 34 W of average power were demonstrated in 65-fs pulses, reaching a similar peak power of 32 MW. We will discuss the performance and power scaling limitations of these two systems, in particular concerning damage and selffocusing
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