Beam delivery and pulse compression to sub-50 fs of a modelocked thin-disk laser in a gas-filled Kagome-type HC-PCF fiber

Opt Express. 2013 Feb 25;21(4):4986-94. doi: 10.1364/OE.21.004986.

Abstract

We present two experiments confirming that hypocycloid Kagome-type hollow-core photonic crystal fibers (HC-PCFs) are excellent candidates for beam delivery of MW peak powers and pulse compression down to the sub-50 fs regime. We demonstrate temporal pulse compression of a 1030-nm Yb:YAG thin disk laser providing 860 fs, 1.9 µJ pulses at 3.9 MHz. Using a single-pass grating pulse compressor, we obtained a pulse duration of 48 fs (FWHM), a spectral bandwidth of 58 nm, and an average output power of 4.2 W with an overall power efficiency into the final polarized compressed pulse of 56%. The pulse energy was 1.1 µJ. This corresponds to a peak power of more than 10 MW and a compression factor of 18 taking into account the exact temporal pulse profile measured with a SHG FROG. The compressed pulses were close to the transform limit of 44 fs. Moreover, we present transmission of up to 97 µJ pulses at 10.5 ps through 10-cm long fiber, corresponding to more than twice the critical peak power for self-focusing in silica.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Data Compression / methods*
  • Equipment Design
  • Equipment Failure Analysis
  • Fiber Optic Technology / instrumentation*
  • Gases / chemistry
  • Lasers*

Substances

  • Gases