High-average-power 216 MHz Kerr lens mode-locked Yb:KGW ring laser oscillator for application to laser spectroscopy

Abstract

We report the development of a ring Yb:KGW laser oscillator with an average power of 4.22 W, a pulse duration of 312 fs at a repetition rate of 216 MHz. The ring laser oscillator is purely Kerr lens mode-locked (KLM) taking advantage of the high nonlinear refractive index of the laser crystal in spite of being pumped by a multimode laser diode. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest average power obtained from a KLM ring Yb:KGW laser oscillator. Monitoring the repetition rate fluctuations after initial warm-up of the laser cavity, a peak to valley of only 354.28 Hz during 30 min of free-running operation has been achieved. This could make a free-running ring cavity a suitable light source for application to laser spectroscopy. Using the ring laser oscillator, we have measured the absorption of the second overtone of the $$\nu _1$$ ν 1 mode of NH$$_3$$ 3 . We have also measured absorption spectra of the Yb:KGW crystal to evaluate the quality of the crystal affected by the doped impurities.