Femtosecond thin-disk laser with 141 W of average power

Abstract

We present a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror mode-locked thin disk laser based on Yb:Lu(2)O(3) with an average power of 141 W and an optical-to-optical efficiency of more than 40%. The ideal soliton pulses have an FWHM duration of 738 fs, an energy of 2.4 microJ, and a corresponding peak power of 2.8 MW. The repetition rate was 60 MHz and the beam was close to the diffraction limit with a measured M(2) below 1.2.

Yb-doped mixed sesquioxides for ultrashort pulse generation in the thin disk laser setup

“…With this material 300 W of pump-limited output power at 74 % optical efficiency could be obtained in multimode cw operation corresponding to the highest efficiency of any high-power TDL so far [5]. In addition, the broad emission bandwidth of Yb:Lu 2 O 3 allows for the generation of ultrashort pulse [7] which resulted in pulse durations as short as 738 fs at an average output power as high as 141 W demonstrated in a mode-locked thin disk laser [8]. Quite recently this result was surpassed by Yb:YAG with 583 fs at 275 W using a vacuum environment [9].…”

Sub-100 femtosecond pulses from a SESAM modelocked thin disk laser

“…The thin gain medium of only a few 100 µm allows for efficient heat removal and provides excellent linear and nonlinear optical properties. A record high average output power of 141 W with a pulse duration of 738 fs has been demonstrated with the novel sesquioxide gain material Yb:Lu 2 O 3 [4], whereas a pulse energy >30 µJ has been demonstrated in 1-ps pulses using the well-established gain material Yb:YAG [5]. In principle, the output power of modelocked TDLs can be scaled up by increasing the beam diameters on both the thin disk gain medium and the SESAM, without detrimental nonlinear effects.…”

“…Recent progress in the growth of high quality sesquioxide materials has attracted great attention [21,22]. Yb:Lu 2 O 3 already holds the record in terms of average power from a passively modelocked oscillator [4] and very recently, 142 fs pulses were reported from this material exploiting >70% of the available 12 nm emission bandwidth [23]. This shows the great potential of this material also in terms of short pulse generation.…”

Ultrafast thin disk lasers: sub-100 fs pulse duration and carrier envelope offset detection

“…Average powers > 140 W [3,4] and pulse energies > 40 µJ [4] have been demonstrated directly from such oscillators. Very recently, the highest average power demonstrated was increased to > 270 W with a pulse duration of 538 fs.…”