Power-scalable femtosecond thin disk Yb:YAG lasers

Author

Paschotta, R. ; Spuhler, C.J. ; Aus der Au, J. ; Keller ; Moser, Michael ; Erhard, S. ; Karszewski, M. ; Giesen, Adolf

Author_Institution

Ultrafast Laser Phys., Swiss Fed. Inst. of Technol., Zurich, Switzerland

fYear

2000

fDate

10-15 Sept. 2000

Abstract

Summary form only given. We present a new concept which allows to build femtosecond lasers with very high average output powers. It is based on a thin disk Yb:YAG laser, passively mode-locked with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM). In a first step, we obtained 16 W of average power in near transform-limited soliton pulses with 730 fs duration, 0.47 /spl mu/J energy, 560 kW peak power, and near diffraction-limited beam quality. Damage of the SESAM is not observed, and Q-switching instabilities are suppressed at full output power. The average power of 16 W is to our knowledge by far the highest reported for a laser oscillator in the subpicosecond regime, and we are working towards even significantly higher powers.

Keywords

laser mirrors; laser mode locking; optical pulse generation; optical saturable absorption; optical solitons; solid lasers; ytterbium; 0.47 muJ; 16 W; 560 kW; 730 fs; YAG:Yb; YAl5O12:Yb; diffraction-limited beam; femtosecond pulse generation; optical soliton; output power; passive mode locking; semiconductor saturable absorber mirror; thin disk Yb:YAG laser; Power lasers;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe, 2000. Conference Digest. 2000 Conference on

Conference_Location

Nice

Print_ISBN

0-7803-6319-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CLEOE.2000.909662

Filename

909662