title: Novel thin-disk oscillator concept for the generation of radially polarized femtosecond laser pulses.
abstract: We report on the first demonstration of a radially polarized passively mode-locked thin-disk oscillator. Radial polarization was achieved by the use of a novel circular grating waveguide output coupler. We showed mode-locked operation up to a maximum average output power of 13.3 W with an optical efficiency of 21.8%. The degree of radial polarization of the emitted beam was measured to be 97±1%. The laser system generated pulses with a duration of 907 fs and an energy of 316 nJ corresponding to a peak power of 0.35 MW. To the best of our knowledge, these values exceed the performance of previously reported radially polarized mode-locked oscillator systems.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eckerle
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dietrich
authors.forename: Frederik
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Schaal
authors.forename: Christof
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pruss
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Osten
authors.forename: Marwan Abdou
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Ahmed
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Graf