Nonlinear femtosecond pulse compression at high average power levels by use of a large-mode-area holey fiber.
We demonstrate that nonlinear fiber compression is possible at unprecedented average power levels by use of a large-mode-area holey (microstructured) fiber and a passively mode-locked thin disk Yb:YAG laser operating at 1030 nm. We broaden the optical spectrum of the 810-fs pump pulses by nonlinear propagation in the fiber and remove the resultant chirp with a dispersive prism pair to achieve 18 W of average power in 33-fs pulses with a peak power of 12 MW and a repetition rate of 34 MHz. The output beam is nearly diffraction limited and is linearly polarized.
Südmeyer
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Ultrafast Laser Physics, Institute of Quantum Electronics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Hönggerberg HPT, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland. sudmeyer@phys.ethz.ch
Brunner
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Innerhofer
E
E
Paschotta
R
R
Furusawa
K
K
Baggett
J C
JC
Monro
T M
TM
Richardson
D J
DJ
Keller
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