title: Broadband high-energy diode-pumped Yb:KYW multipass amplifier.
abstract: We report a diode-pumped Yb:KYW amplifier delivering up to 27 mJ pulses at a repetition rate of 100 Hz and a spectral bandwidth of 5.5 nm, centered at around 1030 nm. The system is based on a double-head multipass amplifier configuration where the pump thermal load is distributed over two relatively thin laser crystals, which permits a sufficiently large number of passes with minimal passive losses, thus maximizing the energy extraction efficiency. The amplified pulse bandwidth theoretically supports 340 fs pulses, and as a demonstration, a small fraction of the amplified pulses has been compressed to 560 fs.
authors.affiliation: Institut de la Lumière Extrême, CNRS, Ecole Polytechnique, ENSTA Paristech, Institut d’Optique, Palaiseau Cedex, France. dimitris.papadopoulos@institutoptique.fr
authors.forename: Dimitrios N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Papadopoulos
authors.forename: Alain
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pellegrina
authors.forename: Lourdes Patricia
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Ramirez
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Georges
authors.forename: Frédéric
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Druon