Search

We experimentally demonstrate a 38-fs chirped-pulse amplified (CPA) Ti:sapphire laser system based on the power-scalable thin-disk scheme with an average output power of 1.45 W at a repetition rate of 1 kHz, corresponding to peak power of 38 GW. The beam profile close to the diffraction limit with a measured M2 value of approximately 1.1 is obtained. It demonstrates the potential for an ultra-intense laser with high beam quality compared with the conventional bulk gain amplifier. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first reported Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier based on the thin-disk approach reaching 1 kHz.

White-light generation with over-octave bandwidth has been greatly desired by the generation of intense sub-cycle optical pulses, time-resolved spectroscopy, and optical parametric amplification [1, 2]. Many applications demand a broadband, flat spectrum without fine structures. However, due to complicated nonlinear interaction, traditional white-light supercontinuum (SC) from nonlinear optical fibers, multi-thin plates [3, 4], and/or gas-filled hollow-core fiber [5] exhibit rapid oscillating spectral structures with a degraded phase coherence.

We demonstrate a high-power, octave-spanning, Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser using double-chirped mirrors to precisely compensate for intracavity dispersion. The ultra-broadband spectrum spans from 550 nm to 1100 nm and the few-cycle pulse is as short as 6.6 fs with an average power up to 880 mW corresponding to the peak power of 1.6 MW. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the highest average output power directly achieved from an octave-spanning Ti:sapphire laser oscillator at the repetition rate of 80 MHz. In addition, the third-order harmonically mode-locked phenomenon was observed in our experiments.

A self-starting femtosecond harmonic mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser is demonstrated, pumped by a 75.5 MHz frequency-doubled mode-locked Yb:KGW oscillator. The maximum average output power is 256 mW at the central wavelength of 811 nm with 3.6 W pump power. A pulse duration as short as 12.7 fs is obtained by using a 3% output coupler. The repetition rate of the Ti:sapphire laser is set to be 151 MHz, which is successfully locked to the twice that of the pump laser.