RESUMEN
A hybrid-system approach using a low-gain Yb:YAG single crystal booster amplifier behind a state-of-the-art industrial high-power femtosecond fiber system is studied to significantly increase the output pulse energy of the fiber amplifier. With this system, more than 60 W of average power is demonstrated at 100 kHz for pulse duration of 400 fs, corresponding to an energy per pulse of 600 µJ. Reducing the repetition rate, the energy is increased up to 2.5 mJ (before compression), which corresponds to the limitation due to laser damage threshold of the optical coatings. To scale further the energy, passive divided-pulse amplification is then implemented at the entrance of the bulk amplifier. Using this geometry, a safe nominal operating point is presented with output pulse energies of 3 mJ before and 2.3 mJ after compression and with a pulse duration of 520 fs, corresponding to a peak power of 4.4 GW.
RESUMEN
A hybrid ytterbium-doped fiber-bulk laser source allowing the generation of 3 ps, 350 µJ, 116 MW peak power Fourier transform-limited pulses at 50 kHz repetition rate and 1030 nm wavelength is described. Pulse duration tunability is provided by an adjustable spectral compression-based seeder system. Energy scaling capabilities of the architecture by use of the divided-pulse amplification method are investigated. This source provides a robust, compact, and versatile solution for applications such as RF photocathode guns, x- and γ-ray generation by inverse Compton scattering, and optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification pumping.
RESUMEN
Active coherent beam combination using a 7-non-coupled core, polarization maintaining, air-clad, Yb-doped fiber is demonstrated as a monolithic and compact power-scaling concept for ultrafast fiber lasers. A microlens array matched to the multicore fiber and an active phase controller composed of a spatial light modulator applying a stochastic parallel gradient descent algorithm are utilized to perform coherent combining in the tiled aperture geometry. The mitigation of nonlinear effects at a pulse energy of 8.9 µJ and duration of 860 fs is experimentally verified at a repetition rate of 100 kHz. The experimental combining efficiency results in a far field central lobe carrying 49% of the total power, compared to an ideal value of 76%. This efficiency is primarily limited by group delay differences between cores which is identified as the main drawback of the system. Minimizing these group delay issues, e.g. by using short and straight rod-type multicore fibers, should allow a practical power scaling solution for femtosecond fiber systems.
RESUMEN
Generation of sub-150-fs-level pulses has been obtained from an Yb-doped crystal-based regenerative amplifier by applying an innovative amplification scheme. This scheme is based on optimization of the linear and non-linear phase during the amplification process inside the regenerative amplifier cavity. This technique with Yb:KYW allows to achieve pulse durations from diode-pumped Yb-doped regenerative amplifiers that were up to now only accessible with more complex Ti:sapphire amplifiers. With this Yb-doped tungstate crystal used in regenerative amplifiers, 145 fs pulses centered at 1026 nm with a spectral bandwidth of 14 nm at 50 kHz for an average power of 1.6 W have been generated.
RESUMEN
We report on the first diode-pumped Yb:CaGdAlO4 regenerative amplifier in the sub-100-fs regime. It generates pulses at a central wavelength of 1047 nm with up to 24 µJ energy (after compression) at a repetition rate of 50 kHz. The measured pulse duration is 97 fs, with a spectral bandwidth of 19 nm. We describe in detail how nonlinear effects are optimally used to compensate gain narrowing in order to overcome the 100 fs barrier.