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

Abstract

We demonstrate an efficient 102-MW peak power, 103-W average power, Kerr-lens mode-locked thin-disk laser (TDL) oscillator generating 52-fs pulses at 17.1-MHz repetition rate. The TDL is based on an Yb:YAG disk and operates in the strongly self-phase-modulation (SPM) broadened regime. In this regime, the spectral bandwidth of the oscillating pulse exceeds the available gain bandwidth by generating additional frequency components via SPM in the Kerr medium inside the laser cavity. At an optical-to-optical efficiency of 26%, our oscillator delivers a more than six times higher average power compared to any 50-fs-class laser oscillator. Compared to previous 100-W-class high-power laser oscillators, we reach this performance in a more than two times shorter pulse duration at a comparable optical-to-optical efficiency. Our TDL delivers the highest peak power of any ultrafast laser oscillator. The short pulse duration combined with high average power and peak power makes the presented TDL oscillator an attractive source for high field science and nonlinear optics.