Recent developments in high power thin disk lasers at TRUMPF Laser

Spatially-controlled complex molecules and their applications

“…The thin-disk laser (TDL) geometry has been shown to be suited for very high CW output powers in combinition with Yb 3+ -doped gain materials [29]. Outputs exceeding 27 kW were demonstrated [30] and 100-kW-systems are anticipated [30,31]. However, so far these high output powers of thin-disk lasers and fiber lasers are only available at beam qualities [24,31] that do not allow for the tight focusing necessary to achieve the envisioned focal intensities.…”

“…Outputs exceeding 27 kW were demonstrated [30] and 100-kW-systems are anticipated [30,31]. However, so far these high output powers of thin-disk lasers and fiber lasers are only available at beam qualities [24,31] that do not allow for the tight focusing necessary to achieve the envisioned focal intensities. In contrast, carbon dioxide and chemical lasers have good beam qualities at even higher output power, but their demanding space requirements and the possibly toxic gain materials are a significant drawback for using the setup as a mobile user facility at modern X-ray light sources.…”

Recent progress in thin-disk lasers based on various Yb-doped materials

“…In multi-mode operation up to 10 kW of output power with a beam parameter product of 35 mm•mrad were demonstrated recently from a single Yb:YAG disk [3] and up to 8 kW with 3 mm•mrad [4]. Using several disks in an unstable resonator, more than 30 kW of output power could be realized [5,6].…”

High-power and high-efficiency frequency-doubled fundamental-mode thin-disk laser

“…Whereas for pulsed systems, high average powers have been demonstrated in the green regime both for intra-cavity [2] (1,8 kW average output power, pulse duration between 100 ns and 300 ns) and extra-cavity frequency doubling [3] (820 W average output power at 70% efficiency), efficient high-power fundamental-mode cw operation using intra-cavity frequency conversion is still limited by losses and thermal lensing issues induced by the additional intra-cavity elements needed for wavelength and polarization stabilization such as etalons and thin-film polarizers. The highest output power demonstrated to date is 255 W with an optical efficiency of 30% [4] and 470 W in multimode operation [5]. In the present contribution, we use a highly efficient grating mirror for intra-cavity wavelength and polarization stabilization, enabling the extraction of 403 W of green radiation in fundamental-mode at an efficiency exceeding 40%.…”