A subpicosecond laser system featuring a fiber chirped pulse amplification-based seed laser and a double-pass end-pumped Yb:YAG crystal power amplifier was investigated. The key novelty of the system was the application of depolarization compensation using a specially designed spatially variable wave plate. To the best of our knowledge, this method was applied for the first time. The presented laser system produced pulses of 441 fs duration, 116 µJ pulse energy at 116 W average power with a beam quality of
M
2
∼
2.1
, featured optical-to-optical efficiency of 32% at room temperature (
T
=
20
∘
C
), and had residual depolarization level of 2.7%.
A new versatile patent-pending technology enabling new operation regimes and a unique set of features in the industrialgrade 30 W-level average power femtosecond hybrid laser is introduced in this work. The developed technology, based on the use of an all-in-fiber active fiber loop (AFL), enabled to form GHz bursts of ultrashort laser pulses with any desired pulse repetition rate and any number of pulses in a burst with identical intra-burst pulse separation. Furthermore, the AFL allowed to tune pulse duration from a few hundred femtoseconds to picoseconds and even up to the nanosecond range.
We demonstrated a 100 W class hybrid laser system based on fiber seed laser and two free-space end-pumped Yb:YAG amplifiers capable of delivering record high pulse energy in a rod-type active medium setup operating at room temperature. The achieved output pulse energy was >10 mJ at 10 kHz pulse repetition rate. The output pulses of 1.09 ps duration were close to Fourier transform-limit. The output beam quality remained high (M 2 < 1.3) despite being affected by thermally induced stress in the gain medium.
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