Abstract

We are reporting on the development of a diode-pumped chirped-pulse-amplification (CPA) laser system based on Yb:YAG thin-disk technology with a repetition rate of 100 Hz and output pulse energy in the joule range. The focus lies with the first results of the preamplifier—a regenerative amplifier (RA) and a multipass amplifier (MP). The system consists of a front end including the CPA stretcher followed by an amplifier chain based on Yb:YAG thin-disk amplifiers and the CPA compressor. It is developed in the frame of our x-ray laser (XRL) program and fulfills all requirements for pumping a plasma-based XRL in grazing incidence pumping geometry. Of course it can also be used for other interesting applications. With the RA pulse energies of more than 165 mJ can be realized. At a repetition rate of 100 Hz a stability of 0.8% $\left(1\sigma \right)$ over a period of more than 45 min has been measured. The optical-to-optical efficiency is 14%. The following MP amplifier can increase the pulse energy to more than 300 mJ. A nearly bandwidth-limited recompression to less than 2 ps could be demonstrated.

© 2009 Optical Society of America

High-repetition-rate picosecond pump laser based on a Yb:YAG disk amplifier for optical parametric amplification

Thomas Metzger, Alexander Schwarz, Catherine Yuriko Teisset, Dirk Sutter, Alexander Killi, Reinhard Kienberger, and Ferenc Krausz
Opt. Lett. 34(14) 2123-2125 (2009)

Thin-disk ring amplifier for high pulse energy

Robert Jung, Johannes Tümmler, Thomas Nubbemeyer, and Ingo Will
Opt. Express 24(5) 4375-4381 (2016)

Millijoule pulse energy high repetition rate femtosecond fiber chirped-pulse amplification system

F. Röser, T. Eidam, J. Rothhardt, O. Schmidt, D. N. Schimpf, J. Limpert, and A. Tünnermann
Opt. Lett. 32(24) 3495-3497 (2007)

High-order harmonic generation at a megahertz-level repetition rate directly driven by an ytterbium-doped-fiber chirped-pulse amplification system

Johan Boullet, Yoann Zaouter, Jens Limpert, Stéphane Petit, Yann Mairesse, Baptiste Fabre, Julien Higuet, Eric Mével, Eric Constant, and Eric Cormier
Opt. Lett. 34(9) 1489-1491 (2009)

High-repetition-rate regenerative thin-disk amplifier with 116 μJ pulse energy and 250 fs pulse duration

Mikhail Larionov, Frank Butze, Detlef Nickel, and Adolf Giesen
Opt. Lett. 32(5) 494-496 (2007)