title: Self-referenceable frequency comb from an ultrafast thin disk laser.
abstract: We present the first measurement of the carrier envelope offset (CEO) frequency of an ultrafast thin disk laser (TDL). The TDL used for this proof-of-principle experiment was based on the gain material Yb:Lu(2)O(3) and delivered 7 W of average power in 142-fs pulses, which is more than two times shorter than previously realized with this material. Using only 65 mW of the output of the laser, we generated a coherent octave-spanning supercontinuum (SC) in a highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber (PCF). We detected the CEO beat signal using a standard f-to-2f interferometer, achieving a signal-to-noise ratio of >25 dB (3 kHz resolution bandwidth). The CEO frequency was tunable with the pump current with a slope of 33 kHz/mA. This result opens the door towards high-power frequency combs from unamplified oscillators. Furthermore, it confirms the suitability of these sources for future intralaser extreme nonlinear optics experiments such as high harmonic generation and VUV frequency comb generation from compact sources.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Institute for Quantum Electronics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland. saraceno@phys.ethz.ch
authors.forename: Clara J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Saraceno
authors.forename: Selina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pekarek
authors.forename: Oliver H
authors.initials: OH
authors.lastname: Heckl
authors.forename: Cyrill R E
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Baer
authors.forename: Cinia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schriber
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Golling
authors.forename: Kolja
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Beil
authors.forename: Christian
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Kränkel
authors.forename: Günter
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Huber
authors.forename: Ursula
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Keller
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Südmeyer
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005374:Filtration / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007834:Lasers; D008904:Miniaturization; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*