Letter Vol. 42, No.

7 / April 1 2017 / Optics Letters 1381

1 kW, 200 mJ picosecond thin-disk laser system

THOMAS NUBBEMEYER,1,* MARTIN KAUMANNS,1 MORITZ UEFFING,1 MARTIN GORJAN,2 AYMAN ALISMAIL,1,3
HANIEH FATTAHI,1,4 JONATHAN BRONS,1 OLEG PRONIN,1 HELENA G. BARROS,1 ZSUZSANNA MAJOR,1,4
THOMAS METZGER,5 DIRK SUTTER,6 AND FERENC KRAUSZ1,4
1
Department für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Am Coulombwall 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany
2
Present address: Spectra-Physics, Feldgut 9, A-6830 Rankweil, Austria
3
Physics and Astronomy Department, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
4
Max-Planck Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany
5
TRUMPF Scientific Lasers GmbH + Co. KG, Feringastr. 10a, 85774 München-Unterföhring, Germany
6
TRUMPF Laser GmbH, Aichhalder Str. 39, 78713 Schramberg, Germany
*Corresponding author: Thomas. [email protected]‑muenchen.de

Received 22 December 2016; accepted 8 March 2017; posted 14 March 2017 (Doc. ID 283086); published 29 March 2017

We report on a laser system based on thin-disk technology complications (cryogenic cooling and coherent multiplexing).
and chirped pulse amplification, providing output pulse en- This capability comes without compromising the temporal and
ergies of 200 mJ at a 5 kHz repetition rate. The amplifier spatial quality of the output beam, both being critical precon-
contains a ring-type cavity and two thin Yb:YAG disks, each ditions for driving a broadband OPA chain efficiently. Yb:YAG
pumped by diode laser systems providing up to 3.5 kW thin-disk picosecond pulse amplifiers have achieved average
power at a 969 nm wavelength. The average output power powers of more than 1 kW [12,13], as well as pulse energies
of more than 1 kW is delivered in an excellent output beam of several hundreds of millihoules [14–16], but the combina-
characterized by M 2
1.1. The output pulses are tion of these performances has not been demonstrated so far.
compressed to 1.1 ps at full power with a pair of dielectric Here we report on the development of a pump laser for
gratings. © 2017 Optical Society of America OPCPA applications with an average output power of more
than 1 kW at both 5 and 10 kHz repetition rates. The system
OCIS codes: (140.3460) Lasers; (140.3480) Lasers, diode-pumped;
is based on chirped pulse amplification (CPA) [17] and a Kerr-
(140.3615) Lasers, ytterbium; (140.3580) Lasers, solid-state;
lens mode-locked (KLM) thin-disk oscillator as a front-end
(140.7090) Ultrafast lasers.
[18] with pulse energies of 1.3 μJ and a pulse length of
https://doi.org/10.1364/OL.42.001381 ∼350 fs. A grating stretcher extends the seed pulse to a chirped
pulse with a duration of 1.5 ns and a frequency sweep of
500 ps∕nm. After stretching, the 1 μJ seed pulses are pre-
The emergence of sources of few-cycle laser pulses based on amplified in a small thin-disk-based regenerative amplifier to
optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) [1–3] 1–2 mJ pulse energy. The main amplifier is built around
has increased the demand for high-power pump lasers. Scaling two diode-pumped Yb:YAG disks, which are used as gain
OPCPA systems to terawatt peak powers at kilohertz repetition media in a ring-type resonator. The whole setup of the main
rates [4] calls for picosecond pump pulses with an energy of amplifier is built into a monolithic aluminum housing for high
hundreds of mJ. At a multi-kilohertz repetition rate, this im- thermal and mechanical stability. A compressor based on multi-
plies an average power of the order of 1 kW. Slab lasers have
layer dielectric (MLD) gratings recompresses the output pulses
yielded sub-ps pulses with more than 1 kW of average power at
to ∼1.1 ps duration. The block diagram of the complete system
a 20 MHz repetition rate [5] and pulse energies of 20 mJ at
12.5 kHz [6]. A strong asymmetric thermal lens tends to com- is shown in Fig. 1.
promise the output beam quality for increasing power levels.
Fiber lasers offer a very good beam quality (M 2 < 1.2) at out-
put energies in the mJ range at a 100 kHz repetition rate [7]. A
coherent combination of several amplifier channels [8] allowed
scaling of this technology, by use of eight channels, meanwhile
up to 1 kW of output power at a 1 MHz repetition rate [9].
Cryogenic cooling offered yet another option for achieving
multi-10 mJ pulse energies at kilohertz repetition rates at
the expense of strongly reduced gain bandwidth [10].
Laser systems based on the thin-disk gain geometry [11] of-
fer high-energy/high-average-power performance without these Fig. 1. Block diagram of the amplification chain.

0146-9592/17/071381-04 Journal © 2017 Optical Society of America

 1382 Vol. 42, No. 7 / April 1 2017 / Optics Letters Letter

The regenerative amplifier consists of two Yb:YAG disk

Mode size 1/e² (mm)

modules (manufactured by TRUMPF Laser GmbH) equipped 3.0
Sagittal

Disk 1
with disks of a thickness of ∼0.2 mm and of 14 mm diameter 1.5
BBO
and pumped by diode laser stacks yielding a power of up to 0.0

Disk 2
3.5 kW per disk. They are integrated into a ring-type resonator 1.5
of 15 m optical path length, which accommodates two tele- Tangential
scopes and a double-crystal BBO Pockels cell (crystal size is 3.0
12 × 12 × 20 mm), inducing the λ∕2 phase shift required by 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
pulse picking. The cw pump diodes operate at a wavelength L (m)
of 969 nm and are stabilized by volume Bragg gratings.
Fig. 3. Calculated eigenmode of the resonator configuration. The
This wavelength matches the zero-phonon line (ZPL) transi-
vertical lines denote positions of curved mirrors and transmissive el-
tion of the gain material and lowers the heat load on the disks ements.
by about 30% due to the reduced quantum defect, as compared
to the usual 940 nm pump wavelength. It has been shown that,
by using ZPL pumping, the output power of a thin-disk laser
system can be significantly improved [19,20]. The pump spot minimum mode diameter above 2.5 mm and, furthermore, en-
on both disks has a size of 6.8 mm, implying a pump intensity sures a mode size of ∼5.5 mm on both disks. The resonator
of 5.5kW∕cm2 at a pump power level of 2 kW. mode is symmetric with respect to the position of the two laser
In Fig. 2, the optical setup of the resonator can be seen. The disks, ensuring an almost identical mode size on both of them.
ring resonator configuration has been chosen to be able to ex- A separate pre-amplifier enables the system to run with fewer
tract the high average output power of more than 1 kW without resonator passes, allowing stable operation up to repetition rates
having to pass a Faraday isolator. In regular amplifiers, based on of 10 kHz. At repetition rates above 1 kHz, pulse energy bi-
a linear resonator, the amplified output beam overlaps with the furcation effects can occur on pulse energy dynamics in regen-
seed pulse and has to be separated from it by using an optical erative amplifiers, as described in earlier works [21–23]. These
isolator. By contrast, the seed and output pulses are intrinsically effects are caused by the lifetime of the upper laser level in Yb:
separated in a ring amplifier. Thus, one can elegantly avoid YAG resulting in gain dynamics which lead to chaotic behavior
introducing nonlinear effects to the output pulse and distor- of the output pulse energy. For a stable operation of the main
tions caused by the thermal lens in the isolator crystal. In order amplifier, this chaotic regime has to be avoided which can be
to fit the whole amplifier setup into a compact (80 × 120 cm), achieved by either applying more pump power to the gain
water-cooled aluminum housing, the beam path has to be medium or by increasing the seed pulse energy.
folded many times. The resonator mirrors are mounted with At 5 kHz operation, 1.9 kW per disk has been found to be
flexure bearings to ensure a high mechanical rigidity and sufficient for stable operation when seeding the main amplifier
stability. Water-cooled apertures and metal shieldings protect with the stretched 1 μJ pulses from the oscillator directly with-
the components from being heated by stray light or fluores- out the usage of a pre-amplifier. However, at a repetition rate of
cence radiation emitted by the pump cavities. 10 kHz a low-energy seed pulse would require around 3 kW of
The resonator mode (see Fig. 3) was calculated by using pump power for each disk, which would lead to a high thermal
ABCD matrix formalism and is designed to fulfill two require- load and an optical intensity close to the damage threshold of
ments to reduce the peak power on the optics: it keeps the the disks. The use of a separate pre-amplifier for the stretched
pulses resolves these issues and significantly improves the power
and energy stability of the system. This pre-amplifier runs with
an average power of ∼10 W at the same repetition rate as the
main amplifier. The system setup and the resonator configura-
tion are similar to those described in [24], although running at
a pump power of only ∼70 W. The output power fluctuations
have been measured to be 0.5% RMS over a period of several
hours, while the pulse energy fluctuations were determined to
be 0.8% RMS. The pre-amplifier system delivers a good beam
quality and excellent long-term power stability, allowing for re-
liable and flexible seeding of the main amplifier with hundreds
of μJ of pulse energy.
As shown in Fig. 4(a), we are able to extract 1 kW of output
power from the main amplifier over more than 5 h with power
fluctuations of 0.3% RMS. This power level was achieved at
both 5 and 10 kHz repetition rates, corresponding to pulse en-
ergies of 200 and 100 mJ, respectively. Running the amplifier at
a 10 kHz repetition rate, we were able to achieve more than
Fig. 2. Optical setup of the regenerative amplifier. QWP, quarter- 1.4 kW of output power [Fig. 4(b)] for several minutes
wave plate; HWP, half-wave plate; FR, Faraday rotator; PC, Pockels whereas, at 5 kHz, a maximum output power of 1.1 kW
cell; TFP, thin-film polarizer. VEX denotes a 10 m RoC convex mir- was reached on similar timescales. The damage threshold of
ror, and CAV denotes a 15 m ROC concave mirror. All other mirrors the optics in the resonator was found to be the main limitation
are plane. for even higher output power levels and longer operation times.
 Letter Vol. 42, No. 7 / April 1 2017 / Optics Letters 1383

1.1 1.0
Output power (kW) (a)

Normalized signal (arb. u.)

0.8
1.0

Pump power: 1.5 kW / Disk

Repetition rate: 5 kHz 0.6
0.2
Avg. output power: 1014 W
0.1
0.0 0.4
0 1 2 3 4 5
Time (hours)
1.5
(b) 0.2
Output power (kW)

1.4
0.0
1026 1028 1030 1032 1034 1036
1.3
Pump power: 2 kW / Disk Wavelength (nm)
0.2 Repetition rate: 10 kHz
Avg. Output power: 1421 W Fig. 5. Output spectrum of the stretched seed pulse (blue dotted
0.1 line), the pre-amplified seed pulse (1 mJ pulse energy, red dashed line),
0.0 and the output pulse of the main amplifier (black solid line) running at
0 2 4 6 8 5 kHz and 1 kW power.
Time (min)
Fig. 4. Output power of the regenerative amplifier at (a) a 5 kHz
repetition rate over a period of several hours. The pump power applied
Measurement of the output beam profile (insets in Fig. 4)
for the measurement is 1.5 kW, and the seed pulse energy is 600 μJ,
shows a symmetric, Gaussian-shaped profile at a 1 kW power
provided by a thin-disk-based regenerative pre-amplifier. At a 10 kHz
repetition rate, a maximum output power of 1.42 kW was achieved for level. The beam caustic measurement (Fig. 6) was performed
several minutes (b). The power traces were acquired by measuring the with an M 2 − 200 sM 2 measuring system (Ophir-Spiricon).
uncompressed beam directly after the amplifier. The insets show the We determined the M 2 to be ∼1.1 on both the x- and y-axes,
measured output beam profiles for each repetition rate. which indicates an excellent, almost diffraction-limited output
beam. Its profile does not change significantly over the power
range of 200 W to 1 kW. The beam shape and the caustic at
10 kHz operation with a 100 mJ pulse energy are almost
Due to the high average power, the system needs to thermalize identical to the values at a 5 kHz repetition rate.
before stable output parameters are reached. The thermaliza- The output pulses are compressed with a pair of MLD gra-
tion time was determined to be approximately 1 h. After an tings. They resist the above pulse energies and average powers,
initial optimization phase of the resonator by using a motorized and exhibit a high diffraction efficiency above 98%, yielding a
mirror in the cavity and the seed incoupling optics, the system compression efficiency of more than 92%. While running the
does not need any further realignment and reproducibly
reaches the same power level on every cycle of operation.
Reliable kilowatt-level operation requires the optimization
1.2
of seed pulse energy, amplification time in the resonator,
and pump power per each disk. For the measured data, as Beam shape in focus
4σ Beam Diameter (mm)

shown in Fig. 4(a), a seed pulse energy of 600 μJ and 38 1.0 M2x = 1.10
resonator round-trips has been used. These parameters, as well
as the required pump power of 1.5 kW per disk, have been M2y = 1.09
0.8
determined experimentally and proved to be the most suitable
values for stable kilowatt-scale operation of the system. While 0.6
the fluctuations of the average output power amount to 0.3%
the pulse-to-pulse (PTP) energy fluctuations have been mea-
sured to be 0.7% RMS, provided that the system is fully ther- 0.4
malized and the resonator has been aligned to the highest
output power. At 10 kHz, the PTP stability is approximately 0.2
1%.
Figure 5 shows the pulse spectra at different locations in the 0.0
amplification chain. The stretched pulse seeding the pre- -40 -20 0 20 40
amplifier has a spectral bandwidth of 3.5 nm, which is
subsequently reduced by gain narrowing effects in the two am- z (mm)
plifier stages to 1.5 nm. Apart from the bandwidth reduction, 2
Fig. 6. M of the output beam measured at 1.01 kW power and a
the output spectrum retains its Gaussian shape, even at a repetition rate of 5 kHz. The inset shows the beam shape at the waist.
200 mJ pulse energy before compression. The measured values are M 2x
1.1 and M 2y
1.09.
 1384 Vol. 42, No. 7 / April 1 2017 / Optics Letters Letter

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