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Thin-disk laser amplifier in the kW regime for ultrashort pulses

 
    Dr. Aldo Antognini
Institut für Teilchenphysik
HPK G 27
Otto-Stern-Weg 5
8093 Zürich

Precision Physics at Low Energy
+41 44 63 33076 
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Project starts   1.1.2016
Project ends    30.6.2018
     
Goals   To develop a multi-pass amplifier based on thin-disk technologies for kW regimes with a gain between 5 and 20 depending on the laser pulse parameters.
     
Project
partners
 
  Prof. Dr. Klaus Kirch
ETH Zurich
Institut für Teilchenphysik
HPK G 27
Otto-Stern-Weg 5
8093 Zürich
Karsten Schuhmann
ETH Zürich
Institut für Teilchenphysik
HPK G 27
Otto-Stern-Weg 5
8093 Zürich
 
Abstract    Many industrial and strong-field physics applications will tremendously benefit from the increase of the energy of ultra-short pulses in the mJ regime at few MHz repetition rates: gorilla glass laser cutting is representative of an industrial application while pump-probe multi-dimensional spectroscopy or photoelectron spectroscopy are two examples which could profit for an increased performance of ultrafast laser sources because in these fields extensive signal averaging is necessary in order to extract small signals. Through high harmonic generation these pulses can also be frequency shifted in the XUV, EUV, and Soft X-ray regime extending considerable the range of applications.
For this purposes, in this project we will develop a multi-pass amplifier based on thin-disk technologies for kW regimes with a gain between 5 and 20 depending on the laser pulse parameters. The kW capabilities are reached not only because of the use of thin-disk technologies, but because of the optical mode propagation design underlying this amplifier which differs from standard amplifiers usually based on 4f or plane parallel propagation. The novelty of the multi-pass design we are proposing here, is its small sensitivity to thermal lens effects and its large number of passes paving the way for power and energy scaling. So the output beam parameters characteristics (waist and divergence) are stable against variation of the thin-disk thermal lens which depends on running conditions. Moreover, no significant beam quality degradation is expected in the amplification process so that beams with M2 < 1.1 are anticipated when coupled with a Gaussian fundamental mode while at the same time non-linear effects are reduced due to the small amount of material crossed by the laser beam and the absence of intensity enhancement as opposed to the situation in a resonator cavity.
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