High-brightness fiber laser-pumped 68 fs-2.3 W Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb:CaF2 oscillator

Guillaume Machinet (1) , P. Sevillano (1) , F. Guichard (1) , R. Dubrasquet (1, 2) , P. Camy (3) , Jean-Louis Doualan (3) , Richard Moncorgé (3) , Patrick Georges (4) , Frédéric Druon (4) , D. Descamps (1) , Eric Cormier (1)

1 CELIA - Centre d'Etudes Lasers Intenses et Applications
2 Azur Light Systems
3 CIMAP - UMR 6252 - Centre de recherche sur les Ions, les MAtériaux et la Photonique
4 Laboratoire Charles Fabry / Lasers

By using a high-brightness fiber pump laser, we demonstrate a pure Kerr-lens mode-locked (ML) Yb:CaF2 oscillator. The laser delivers 68 fs pulses with 2.3 W average power at 73 MHz repetition rate and an optical-to-optical efficiency of 33% is achieved. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of Kerr-lens mode-locking in Yb:CaF2. Incidentally, we report here the highest average power ever achieved for a sub-100-fs active Kerr-lens ML Yb-bulk oscillator.

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

Guillaume Machinet, P. Sevillano, F. Guichard, R. Dubrasquet, P. Camy, et al.. High-brightness fiber laser-pumped 68 fs-2.3 W Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb:CaF2 oscillator. Optics Letters, 2013, 38 (20), pp.4008. ⟨10.1364/OL.38.004008⟩. ⟨hal-00904508⟩