Efficient 100-MW, 100-W, 50-fs-class Yb:YAG thin-disk laser oscillator

Fischer, Julian; Drs, Jakub; Modsching, Norbert; Labaye, François; Wittwer, Valentin J.; Südmeyer, Thomas

doi:10.1364/oe.442833

Cited by 25 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Interestingly, the oscillator spectrum was very close to the emission bandwidth of the Yb:YAG gain medium, which is about 9 nm FHWM. In principle, it is possible to overcome this limitation by further increasing the SAM using a distributed KLM technique, [20] or in a way it was recently shown in [7] which already demonstrated 50 fs long output pulses directly from a Yb:YAG thin-disk oscillator.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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100 MW Thin-Disk Oscillator

Goncharov

Fritsch

Pronin

2021

2021 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe &Amp; European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)

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A compact Kerr-lens mode-locked thin-disk oscillator delivering 110 MW output peak power, the highest among all oscillators, is reported. A pulse train with a repetition rate of 14 MHz carries 115 fs long, 14.4 uJ pulses resulting in 202 W of average power. This compact, simple, and stable oscillator is a suitable driver and an important milestone for further high harmonics generation and the development of extreme ultraviolet transportable frequency comb sources.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[6] A KLM oscillator with 102 MW peak power and 50 fs output pulse duration was recently demonstrated. [7] However, the laser operates for only two minutes, what makes it somewhat impractical for applications. Fortunately, these values do not represent a fundamental limitation due to the peak power scaling concept.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

100 MW Thin-Disk Oscillator

Goncharov

Fritsch

Pronin

2021

2021 Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe &Amp; European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)

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“…The higher gain crosssection of Yb:YAG combined with the SPM-broadened regime has outperformed the broadband gain materials both in terms of average power, demonstrating 69 W at 84 fs, as well as in pulse duration, reaching the shortest pulses of any TDL oscillator with a duration of 27 fs at 3.3 W of average power. The second study utilizing the same laser system has pushed the frontier in the sub-100-fs regime even further by demonstrating 100 W of average power at 52 fs pulse duration [53]. Importantly, the latter result was achieved at an optical-to-optical efficiency of 26% which is comparable to the TDL oscillators operating within their gain bandwidth.…”

Section: Kerr-lens Mode-lockingmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Up to nowadays, the production of high-quality thin disks comes at a great effort and has been difficult to achieve outside of an industrial environment. It can be also noticed, that several research groups have been recently returning back to Yb:YAG [47,49,53]. The commercial availability and the suitability for high average powers seem to outweigh the narrower gain bandwidth.…”

Section: Gain Materialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…6. Recently, this limitation has been overcome by the demonstration of a SPM-broadened KLM TDL oscillator delivering 52-fs pulse duration with 26% optical-to-optical efficiency [53]. Thus, it is likely that more efficient TDL oscillators will soon operate in the sub-50-fs domain, which will also allow to increase their average power in this regime.…”

Section: Comparison Of Mode-locking Schemesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Think-disk lasers and their applications for nonlinear frequency conversion toward THz and XUV

Drs¹

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This thesis is devoted to the development of ultrafast thin-disk lasers (TDL) oscillators and their use for intra-oscillator high-harmonic generation (HHG). The main motivation was to develop a simple and compact source of coherent extreme ultraviolet (XUV) light. Conventionally, coherent XUV radiation can be found in large scale synchrotron or free-electron laser facilities. Laser driven HHG systems have long strived to become a lab-scale alternative to these sources. The major challenge has been the low conversion efficiency of the HHG process and the high demands on the driving laser. With the advancing laser technology, this situation is rapidly improving and several state-of-the-art HHG systems can nowadays reach an XUV flux which is in certain aspects comparable to synchrotrons. The intra-laser-oscillator HHG approach is inspired by femtosecond enhancement cavities. Driving HHG inside an enhancement cavity allows for recycling the unconverted pulse energy, while increasing the available power by the cavity enhancement factor. An enhancement cavity, however, requires coherent coupling of the femtosecond pulses into the cavity which is a demanding task. The intra-oscillator HHG approach offers a simplified concept using directly the cavity of the laser instead of an external enhancement cavity. To achieve sufficiently high driving power for efficient intra-oscillator HHG, the existing TDL technology had to be significantly improved and optimized for intracavity performance. Within the scope of this thesis, a strong focus was placed on the development of the driving laser and significant progress has been achieved. To this purpose, we investigated and demonstrated Kerr lens modelocked TDL oscillators based on the gain material Yb:YAG, which achieved several records in terms of their output performance. Using our system we have demonstrated the shortest pulse duration of any TDL oscillator of 27 fs, as well as the highest average power in the sub-100-fs regime of 100 W and the highest peak power of 100 MW. The corresponding increase of intracavity performance of our laser allowed us to significantly improve the HHG operation in terms of the generated XUV flux and photon energies. Starting from 0.5 nW generated at 13 eV demonstrated five years ago, we have improved the XUV flux to 10 μW at 30 eV at the current state. Although this is not yet the highest performance among other HHG systems, the flux value is becoming competitive to the results of enhancement cavities operating at similar photon energy. The improved output performance of the demonstrated TDLs is also highly attractive for nonlinear conversion toward longer wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. A part of this thesis is, thus, dedicated to terahertz generation. We have demonstrated the first TDL driven terahertz generation in 2018, through optical rectification in GaP. Later, we used the tunability and the high average power of our self-built TDL oscillator to experimentally investigate in detail the properties of optical rectification in GaP driven by 1- μm high-power Yb-based lasers. Finally, having the experience from intra-oscillator HHG, we have shown that the high-power driving laser can be replaced by driving the THz generation directly inside the cavity of a small KLM bulk laser oscillator.

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A Decade of Sub‐100‐fs Thin‐Disk Laser Oscillators

Drs

Fischer

Modsching

et al. 2023

Laser & Photonics Reviews

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Thin‐disk lasers (TDLs) are best known for their high‐power continuous‐wave industrial applications. Nonetheless, the thin‐disk geometry is also highly attractive for ultrafast laser oscillators. The short propagation distance and large beam diameter inside the gain crystal allows for very low induced nonlinearity, low dispersion, and extreme peak powers inside the laser cavity. The path toward TDL oscillators directly delivering high average power at ultrafast pulse duration required for many scientific applications has, however, been tangled and is still ongoing. A decade ago, the first sub‐100‐fs laser oscillator is demonstrated, initiating the pursuit of even shorter pulses. Since then, many gain materials have been investigated in the thin‐disk geometry as well as various mode‐locking mechanisms for their suitability for efficient short‐pulse operation. In this review, the fast‐evolving development trends of TDL oscillators, as well as their scientific applications and prospects will be discussed.

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Efficient 100-MW, 100-W, 50-fs-class Yb:YAG thin-disk laser oscillator

Cited by 25 publications

References 27 publications

100 MW Thin-Disk Oscillator

100 MW Thin-Disk Oscillator

Think-disk lasers and their applications for nonlinear frequency conversion toward THz and XUV

A Decade of Sub‐100‐fs Thin‐Disk Laser Oscillators

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