Abstract:We report on a diode-pumped Yb:KGW (ytterbium-doped potassium gadolinium tungstate) laser with a repetition rate of 4.8 GHz and a pulse duration of 396 fs. Stable fundamental modelocking is achieved with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM). The average output power of this compact diode-pumped solid state laser is 1.9 W which corresponds to a peak power of 0.9 kW and the optical-to-optical efficiency is 36%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the femtosecond DPSSL with the highest repetition rate ever reported so far. with pulse repetition rates up to 160 GHz," IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 38(10), 1331-1338 (2002). 20, issue 4, 4248-4253, 2012 which should be used for any reference to this work 1 12. A. E. H. Oehler, M. C. Stumpf, S. Pekarek, T. Südmeyer, K. J. Weingarten, and U. Keller, "Picosecond diodepumped 1.5 µm Er,Yb:glass lasers operating at 10-100 GHz repetition rate," Appl. Phys. B 99(1-2), 53-62 (2010). 13. P. Wasylczyk, P. Wnuk, and C. Radzewicz, "Passively modelocked, diode-pumped Yb:KYW femtosecond oscillator with 1 GHz repetition rate," Opt. Express 17(7), 5630-5635 (2009). 14. S. Yamazoe, M. Katou, T. Adachi, and T. Kasamatsu, "Palm-top-size, 1.5 kW peak-power, and femtosecond (160 fs) diode-pumped mode-locked Yb +3 :KY(WO4)2 solid-state laser with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror," Opt. Lett. 35(5), 748-750 (2010 Matuschek, and J. Aus der Au, "Semiconductor saturable absorber mirrors (SESAMs) for femtosecond to nanosecond pulse generation in solid-state lasers," IEEE
Published in Optics Express