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

Beil, Kolja; Saraceno, Clara J.; Schriber, Cinia; Emaury, Florian; Heckl, Oliver H.; Baer, C. R. E.; Golling, Matthias; Südmeyer, Thomas; Keller, U.; Kränkel, Christian; Huber, G.

doi:10.1007/s00340-013-5433-2

Cited by 61 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…In our stabilization scheme, we use feedback to the current of the multimode pump laser. The laser uses an Yb:CALGO (Yb:CaGdAlO 4 ) thin disk and generates 90-fs pulses at 65-MHz repetition rate and an average power of 2.1 W directly from the oscillator, which is among the shortest pulse durations reported from TDLs to-date [26][27][28]. Therefore, no external pulse compression stages were required for CEO phase-stabilization.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phase-stabilization of the carrier-envelope-offset frequency of a SESAM modelocked thin disk laser

Klenner¹,

Emaury²,

Schriber³

et al. 2013

Opt. Express

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Abstract:We phase-stabilized the carrier-envelope-offset (CEO) frequency of a SESAM modelocked Yb:CaGdAlO 4 (CALGO) thin disk laser (TDL) generating 90-fs pulses at a center wavelength of 1051.6 nm and a repetition rate of 65 MHz. By launching only 2% of its output power into a photonic crystal fiber, we generated a coherent octave-spanning supercontinuum spectrum. Using a standard f-to-2f interferometer for CEO detection, we measured CEO beats with 33 dB signal-to-noise ratio in 100 kHz resolution bandwidth. We achieved a tight lock of the CEO frequency at 26.18 MHz by active feedback to the pump current. The residual in-loop integrated phase noise is 120 mrad (1 Hz-1 MHz). This is, to our knowledge, the first CEO-stabilized SESAM modelocked TDL. Our results show that a reliable lock of the CEO frequency can be achieved using standard techniques in spite of the strongly spatially multimode pumping scheme of TDLs. This opens the door towards fully-stabilized low-noise frequency combs with hundreds of watts of average power from Top. Quantum Electron. 13(3), 598-609 (2007). 9. A. Giesen, H. Hügel, A. Voss, K. Wittig, U. Brauch, and H. Opower, "Scalable concept for diode-pumped highpower solid-state lasers," Appl. Phys. B 58(5), 365-372 (1994). 78(4), 1135-1184 (2006). 32. S. Pekarek, T. Südmeyer, S. Lecomte, S. Kundermann, J. M. Dudley, and U. Keller, "Self-referenceable frequency comb from a gigahertz diode-pumped solid-state laser," Opt. Express 19(17), 16491-16497 (2011). 33. G. Di Domenico, S. Schilt, and P. Thomann, "Simple approach to the relation between laser frequency noise and laser line shape," Appl. Opt. 49(25), 4801-4807 (2010).2 34. S. Schilt, N. Bucalovic, L. Tombez, V. Dolgovskiy, C. Schori, G. Di Domenico, M. Zaffalon, and P. Thomann, "Frequency discriminators for the characterization of narrow-spectrum heterodyne beat signals: application to the measurement of a sub-hertz carrier-envelope-offset beat in an optical frequency comb," Rev. Sci. Instrum.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phase-stabilization of the carrier-envelope-offset frequency of a SESAM modelocked thin disk laser

Klenner¹,

Emaury²,

Schriber³

et al. 2013

Opt. Express

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“…Published in Optics Letters 38, issue 19,[3842][3843][3844][3845]2013 which should be used for any reference to this work potential [14]. To date, the shortest pulses from a modelocked TDL were obtained with the broadband mixed sesquioxide material Yb:LuScO 3 [∼20 nm full width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the gain cross section at inversion levels of around 10%].…”

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SESAM mode-locked Yb:CaGdAlO_4 thin disk laser with 62 fs pulse generation

et al. 2013

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We present a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) mode-locked thin disk laser (TDL) based on Yb:CaGdAlO 4 (Yb:CALGO) generating 62 fs pulses, which is the shortest pulse duration achieved from mode-locked TDLs to date. The oscillator operates at a repetition rate of 65 MHz and delivers 5.1 W of average output power. The short pulse duration of our TDL in combination with the high intracavity peak power of 44 MW makes this oscillator attractive for intracavity table-top extreme nonlinear optics applications such as high harmonic generation and vacuum ultraviolet frequency comb generation. The current average power was limited by the quality of the Yb:CALGO disk. However, power scaling of Yb:CALGO TDLs to the multi-10-W range with short pulse durations (<100 fs) appears feasible in the near future by using thinner disks of better quality and further optimized SESAMs.OCIS One interesting aspect of TDLs is the high intracavity peak power which can be realized because the output coupler typically has values in the order of 10%. This intracavity peak power should allow for extreme nonlinear frequency conversion such as high harmonic generation (HHG). Realizing those experiments at a high repetition rate in the MHz regime, typically obtained with ultrafast TDLs, is highly desirable for an improved signal-to-noise ratio and to reduce acquisition times in high field laser physics. However, for efficient operation, HHG typically requires peak intensities of >10 13 W∕cm 2 (i.e., peak powers of >30 MW for a spot diameter of 25 μm) in combination with short pulse durations <100 fs [8][9][10] [ Fig. 1(c)]. State of the art mode-locked TDLs are typically based on the well-established gain material Yb:YAG, which has only reached the 200-fs-regime so far with a Kerr lens mode-locked TDL setup [ 11].Therefore, there is a strong research effort in extending the record performance of mode-locked TDLs to the sub-100-fs regime [ Fig. 1(a)], and overcoming the tradeoff between pulse duration and average output power [ Fig. 1(b)] with novel broadband thin disk gain materials that meet the spectroscopic and thermomechanical requirements [12 , 13]. In the past years, many Yb-doped gain materials have been investigated toward this goal. In particular, cubic sesquioxides have demonstrated their

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“…Its thermal conductivity (12 W/mK) [1] is higher than that of Yb:YAG and broad band emission with a tuning range from of 987-1134.5 nm was demonstrated in continuous-wave regime [2]. Furthermore, modelocked and continuous-wave operations in thin-disk laser geometry were shown with output powers of 7 W with 142 fs pulse duration [3] and 20.5 W with 370 fs [4], as well as 141 W with 738 fs pulse duration [5] and 670 W [6], respectively.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%