title: Generation of 287 W, 5.5 ps pulses at 78 MHz repetition rate from a cryogenically cooled Yb:YAG amplifier seeded by a fiber chirped-pulse amplification system.
abstract: We generate linearly polarized, 287 W average-power, 5.5 ps pulses using a cryogenically cooled Yb:YAG amplifier at a repetition rate of 78 MHz. An optical-to-optical efficiency of 41% is obtained at 700 W pump power. A 6 W, 0.4 nm bandwidth picosecond seed source at 1029 nm wavelength is constructed using a chirped-pulse fiber amplification chain based on chirped volume Bragg gratings. The combination of a fiber amplifier system and a cryogenically cooled Yb:YAG amplifier results in good spatial beam quality at large average power. Low nonlinear phase accumulation as small as 5.1 x 10(-3) rad in the bulk Yb:YAG amplifier supports power scalability to a > 10 kW level without being affected by self-phase modulation. This amplification system is well suited for pumping high-power high-repetition-rate optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifiers.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. kyunghan@mit.edu
authors.forename: Kyung-Han
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.forename: Aleem
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Siddiqui
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Moses
authors.forename: Juliet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gopinath
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hybl
authors.forename: F Omer
authors.initials: FO
authors.lastname: Ilday
authors.forename: Tso Yee
authors.initials: TY
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Franz X
authors.initials: FX
authors.lastname: Kärtner