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

Abstract

We present the first passively modelocked thin disk laser (TDL) with sub-100-fs pulse duration using the broadband sesquioxide gain material Yb:LuScO 3 and an optimized SEmiconductor Saturable Absorber Mirror (SESAM). In this proof-of-principle experiment, we obtained 5.1 W of average power at a repetition rate of 77.5 MHz and a pulse duration of 96 fs. We carefully explored and optimized the different parameters on the soliton pulse formation process for the generation of short pulses. In particular, SESAMs combining fast recovery time, high modulation depth and low nonsaturable losses proved crucial to achieve this result even though they are expected to only play a minor role in soliton modelocking. To our knowledge, these are the shortest pulses ever obtained with a modelocked TDL, reaching for the first time the sub-100-fs milestone. This result opens the door to sub-100-fs oscillators with substantially higher power levels in the near future.

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

“…Thus, the combination of both crystals in one disordered crystal structure results in an inhomogeneously broadened emission bandwidth. The first modelocking experiments with the resulting sesquioxide Yb:LuScO 3 delivered already 227 fs [11], which could be improved to 195 fs [12] and recently allowed for sub-100 fs pulse durations [13]. As can be seen from Fig.…”

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

“…2a. The details of the different components can be found in Ref [7]. Stable modelocking was obtained with up to 5.1 W of average power at a pulse duration of 96 fs (Fig.…”

Perfect Precision in Industrial Micro Machining

“…Recently, 270 fs pulses and 200 fs pulses have been obtained at average powers of 45 W and 17 W, respectively, directly from an Yb:YAG disk oscillator [21]. Furthermore, 235 fs at 23 W [22] and even shorter 96 fs pulses at 5.1 W average power have been demonstrated from a disk oscillator [23] by using the broadband Yb-doped sesquioxide Yb:LuScO 3 . It is likely that the record average powers of ultrafast disk lasers can eventually be scaled up to the kW level.…”