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An overview of the latest developments of kilowatt-level diode pumped solid state lasers for advanced applications at the HiLASE Centre is presented. An overview of subcontracted and in-house-developed laser beamlines is presented. The aim of development is to build kW-class beamlines delivering picosecond pulses between 1- and 100-kHz repetition rates and high-energy nanosecond pulses at 10 Hz. The picosecond beamlines are based on Yb:YAG thin-disk amplifiers and chirped pulse amplification. The current status of the beamlines’ performance is reported. The advantages of zero-phonon line and pulsed pumping are demonstrated with respect to efficiency, thin disk temperature and beam quality. New diagnostics methods supporting the high average power lasers’ development, such as the high-resolution spectroscopy of Yb-doped materials, in situ thin disk deformation measurements, single-shot M2 measurement, realization of wavefront correction by a deformable mirror and the laser performance of a new mixed garnet ceramics, are described. The energetic, thermal and fluid-mechanical numerical modeling for the optimization of the multi-slab amplifiers is also described.

In many fields of modern physics and industrial applications high-average power pulsed diode-pumped solid-state lasers are essential. Scaling of these lasers towards higher pulse energies is often limited by the onset of thermal effects which are determined by the average power. In this paper we would like to propose a way of increasing the pulse energies by operating the PERLA B laser system in 100 Hz burst mode with 1 ms burst duration and intra-burst repetition rate of 10 kHz. The CPA-based system incorporates fiber front-end, regenerative amplifier and the multipass amplifier followed by the booster amplifier and

High-energy ps-laser pulses with excellent beam quality are required for efficient Compton X-ray source. We report on a thin-disk multipass amplifier operated in burst mode with output of 0.5 J burst energy.

In this paper, a practical model of a thin disk regenerative amplifier has been developed based on an analytical approach, in which Drew A. Copeland [1] had evaluated the loss rate of the upper state laser level due to ASE and derived the analytical expression of the effective life-time of the upper-state laser level by taking the Lorentzian stimulated emission line-shape and total internal reflection into account. By adopting the analytical expression of effective life-time in the rate equations, we have developed a less numerically intensive model for predicting and analyzing the performance of a thin disk regenerative amplifier. Thanks to the model, optimized combination of various parameters can be obtained to avoid saturation, period-doubling bifurcation or first pulse suppression prior to experiments. The effective life-time due to ASE is also analyzed against various parameters. The simulated results fit well with experimental data. By fitting more experimental results with numerical model, we can improve the parameters of the model, such as reflective factor which is used to determine the weight of boundary reflection within the influence of ASE. This practical model will be used to explore the scaling limits imposed by ASE of the thin disk regenerative amplifier being developed in HiLASE Centre.

We present a simple and fast technique for measuring laser beam parameters, including focus shift using Yaglass, a telecentric lens, and a camera. Our technique is based on imaging of visible fluorescence that represents caustic of the focused near-infrared laser beam. By processing a single camera frame, a large number of second-moment beam diameters are calculated simultaneously without any need for a traditional scan in the propagation direction. The ${{M}^2}$M2 values measured with this method and standard method are in excellent agreement. We extend this technique to measure the focus shift and focus spot size. This method is fast and allows the real-time monitoring of laser beam parameters simultaneously during the manufacturing process.

High average power picosecond Yb:YAG thin-disk lasers are being developed at Hilase. A compact 1 mJ/100 kHz and 4 mJ/100 kHz zero-phonon-line-pumped regenerative amplifiers PERLA C with a CVBG compressor provide

Since the principle of M2 measurement is to scan the beam discretely along with propagation direction, measurement time of several minutes is required which is not suitable for pulsed lasers. Several single-shot techniques have been proposed to measure M2 by using diffraction gratings and wavefront sensor, but were shown to be more complex and yield inaccurate results for multimode beams. Another approach to measure the M2 uses Rayleigh scattering from gas or liquid-filled cell. The scattered image by laser light in the cell, however, contains lots of speckle patterns which degrade the accuracy of M2 measurement. We developed a single shot M2 measurement based on a photosensitive glass. The measurement system consists of the photosensitive glass plate and the imaging camera with macro lens. When the pulsed laser beam focused into the cross-sectional direction of photosensitive glass plate, the visible fluorescence of the glass plate indicates the focusing property of laser beam. Then the visualized beam propagation in the glass is imaged precisely to measure the beam diameters around beam waist. Since the coherent laser beam is converted to the incoherent fluorescence, the beam propagation image is free from speckle patterns. The M2 can be calculated from the image within less than a second. This simple technique allows the possibility of the real time monitoring of the beam quality. We obtained M2=1.10 from a fiber coupled diode laser that is close to the actual value of M2=1.18 using the standard scanning method.

An overview of Czech national R&D project HiLASE (High average power pulsed LASEr) is presented. The HiLASE project aims at development of pulsed DPSSL for hi-tech industrial applications. HiLASE will be a user oriented facility with several laser systems with output parameters ranging from a few picosecond pulses with energy of 5 mJ to 0.5 J and repetition rate of 1-100 kHz (based on thin disk technology) to systems with 100 J output energy in nanosecond pulses with repetition rate of 10 Hz (based on multi-slab technology).

We are developing an Yb:YAG thin disk regenerative amplifier operating at 1 kHz repetition rate which should deliver output of 100 W of average power which corresponds to the pulse energy of 100 mJ. In order to achieve such high output energy, large size mode matching on a thin-disk is required to avoid optical damage but on the other hand, larger mode area is more susceptible to the influence of optical phase distortions (OPD’s) thus limits achievable pulse energy and beam quality. We developed a compact setup allowing precise measurement of the thin-disk deformations by implementation of a Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor and a single mode probe laser diode. In comparison to the interferometric measurement methods, our approach brings a number of advantages like simplicity of alignment, compactness and robustness, at the same time keeping the high precision of measurement in a range of few nanometers.

We are developing 100-kHz picosecond Yb:YAG thin disk regenerative amplifier with 500-W average power for medical and industrial applications. Especially in case of the next generation of semiconductor lithography, high average power solid-state laser with picosecond pulse duration as pre pulse source is a key element to realize 1-kW EUV lithography source. We compared the output characteristics of CW laser operation pumped at 940-nm and 969-nm, and measured the surface temperature of thin disk. We found that the surface temperature of thin disk pumped at 960-nm was much lower than that pumped at 940-nm. We obtained 83-W output from thin disk regenerative amplifier at the repetition rate of 100-kHz pumped at 969-nm. The measured pulse duration was 1.9-ps.

Development of high-power, picosecond laser sources is a desirable venture for both industry and research. Within the Hilase project, we are conducting research on both 500-mJ, 1-kHz and 5-mJ, 100-kHz picosecond laser sources based on the Yb:YAG thin-disk technology. We have developed a prototype thin-disk regenerative amplifier operating up to 10- kHz repetition rate pumped by the 940-nm fiber-coupled laser diodes. We achieved 5-mJ pulse energy at 10-kHz operation and 29.5-mJ at 1-kHz. Afterwards, we developed the high-energy regenerative amplifier operating at fixed repetition rate of 1-kHz and the pulse energy was achieved up to 40-mJ. Simultaneously, we elaborated the highrepetition rate regenerative amplifier operating at 100-kHz with pulse energy of 220-μJ. The amplified pulse was compressed with the efficiency of 88% using chirped volume Bragg grating.

The framework of the Research Program 1 (RP1) in the HiLASE[1] project is to develop both the 500-mJ at 1-kHz repetition rate and the 5-mJ at 100-kHz repetition rate laser systems with 1-2ps pulse duration based on thin disk technology for industrial, scientific, and medical applications. The front-end of our laser system contains a regenerative amplifier as the first stage of amplifier chain. We are developing the Yb:YAG thin disk regenerative amplifier with pulse energy of 120-130mJ before pulse compression at the repetition rate of 1-kHz. As the first step towards the 100-mJ class regenerative amplifier, we have developed a prototype of Yb:YAG thin disk regenerative amplifier operating in the range of 1-kHz to 10-kHz repetition rate.

We are developing one kilohertz picosecond Yb:YAG thin disk regenerative amplifier with 500-W average power for medical and industrial applications. In case of high energy pulse amplification, a large area mode matching in gain media, which is drastically degenerated by the optical phase distortion, is required to avoid optical damage. We designed in-situ thin disk deformation measurement based on the combination of a precise wavefront sensor and a single mode probe beam. In contrast to a conventional interferometric measurement, this measurement is compact, easy-to-align, and is less affected by mechanical vibrations.

We demonstrated the laser performance of an Yb:YAG/YAG composite ceramic laser medium mounted on an aluminium heatsink via atomic diffusion bonding (ADB) technique using nanocrystalline metal films at room temperature in air. The surface temperature rise of the ADB bonded laser medium was linear with 57 °C lower than that of the commercially available soldered Yb:YAG thin disk at the pump power of 280 W. Moreover, the ADB disk was pumped 1.5 times higher (7.3 kW cm−2) than the typical damage threshold of the soldered disk without any sign of damage. The undoped capping may be effective for the suppression of ASE heating; however, according to the in situ OPD measurement it induces strong thermal lensing. The CW laser output power of 177 W was obtained at the pump power of 450 W with the optical-to-optical efficiency of 40% using V-shape cavity.

A quantitative comparison of conventional absorption line (940 nm) pumping and zero phonon line (ZPL) (969 nm) pumping of a Yb:YAG thin disk laser is reported. Characteristics of an output beam profile, surface temperature, and deformation of a thin disk under the different pump wavelengths are evaluated. We found that a nonlinear phonon relaxation (NPR) of the excited state in Yb:YAG, which induces nonlinear temperature rise and large aspheric deformation, did not appear in the case of a ZPL pumped Yb:YAG thin disk. This means that the advantage of ZPL pumping is not only the reduction of quantum defect but also the suppression of NPR. The latter effect is more important for high power lasers.

HiLASE facility focuses on development of high average power pulsed lasers with picosecond and nanosecond laser pulses. Recently, lasers with 500 W average power with picosecond pulses and energy of 5 mJ and 1 kW average power with nanosecond pulses and energy of 100 J were reported. Current status and future plans of the HiLASE facility are presented.

High-power lasers are increasingly used in wide range of industrial manufacturing processes and scientific research [1,2]. Thermal lensing effects makes the high-power lasers not always stable over the very long periods of time required in manufacturing processes and thus changes the output laser beam parameters [3]. The key parameters for industrial lasers are M2 value, focused spot size and its position shift with respect to the work-piece. Changes in these properties may cause the process to fail or yield low quality output. Real-time monitoring and instantaneous measurement of these parameters simultaneously throughout the manufacturing process is highly desirable. Such measurements also enables the laser developers to observe the variation of M2 during cavity optimizations for achieving TEM 00 mode.

Nonlinear phonon relaxation in Yb:YAG gain media has previously been investigated, and a hypothesis correlating photo-induced free electrons and heat generation in crystals pumped at a wavelength of 940 nm was established (Brandt et al 2011 Appl. Phys. B 102 765–8). Later, we demonstrated efficient suppression of nonlinear phonon relaxation by zero-phonon line (ZPL) pumping of Yb:YAG (969 nm). However, no hypothesis has yet been tested that correlates the heat load and the free electrons in Yb:YAG media. We investigate, both theoretically and experimentally, the behaviour of an Yb:YAG slab pumped by a high-power laser diode at a conventional broadband line (absorption maximum at 941 nm) and a ZPL (absorption maximum at 969 nm), and we compare the generated photocurrent, temperature, and absorbed pump power for those two pump wavelengths. Although the hypothesis established by Brandt et al (2011 Appl. Phys. B 102 765–8) was not confirmed, and the measured photocurrent was identical for the two pump wavelengths, our measurement contributes to the knowledge of the inner processes in Yb:YAG active media. In the following steps we characterized an Yb:YAG thin disk laser, measured the spectrally-resolved absorption and disk surface temperature, and optimised our predictive model of thin disk behaviour. All the experimental and theoretical results are reported.