High-energy, kHz, picosecond hybrid Yb-doped chirped-pulse amplifier

• DOI: 10.1364/oe.23.010132
• Publication Date: 2015-04-11T02:55:02Z
• Authors: Chun-Lin Chang; Peter Krogen; Kyung-Han Hong; Luis E. Zapata; Jeffrey Moses; Anne-Laure Calendron; Houkun Liang; Chien-Jen Lai; Gregory J. Stein; Phillip D. Keathley; Guillaume Laurent; Franz X. Kärtner
• Keywords: Regenerative amplification; Chirped pulse amplification; Picosecond; Pulse duration

We report on a diode-pumped, hybrid Yb-doped chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) laser system with compact pulse stretcher and compressor, consisting of fiber preamplifiers, room-temperature Yb:KYW regenerative amplifier (RGA), cryogenic Yb:YAG multi-pass amplifiers. The RGA provides relatively broad bandwidth thereby long duration to mitigate B-integral in the CPA chain. ~1030-nm pulses are amplified up 70 mJ at 1-kHz repetition rate, currently limited by available optics apertures, then compressed ~6 ps high efficiency. near-diffraction-limited beam focusing quality is demonstrated M(x)(2) = 1.1 M(y)(2) 1.2. shot-to-shot energy fluctuation as low ~1% (rms), long-term drift pointing stability for over 8 hours measurement ~3.5% <6 μrad respectively. To best our knowledge, this produces most energetic picosecond kHz rates among rod-type With an optically synchronized Ti:sapphire seed laser, it versatile platform optimized pumping optical parametric systems well driving inverse Compton scattered X-rays.