High Energy/High Repetition Rate Laser Pulses from Yb Based Solid State Oscillators with Cavity-Dumping and Regenerative Amplifiers

Various scientific and industrial laser applications profit from the latest progress of directly diode pumped high-power femtosecond oscillators, in particular applications such as laser micromachining, nonlinear spectroscopy, or laser surgery. These oscillators provide pulse energies in the microjoule regime at 100 kHz to megahertz repetition rates, replacing complex and expensive chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) systems. Regarding power and energy scaling, Yb-doped materials are of great interest, offering the opportunity of high-power diode-pumping plus the generation of femtosecond pulses. In this article, we report on recent progress in the generation of femtosecond pulses with high energies either from oscillators or from regenerative amplifiers. In the first part of this chapter we discuss solid state oscillators with cavity-dumping and solitary pulse shaping followed by the concept of oscillators in the positive dispersion regime. The principle of thin-disk oscillator technology and its suitability for cavity-dumping is discussed, and the latest results from our two-crystal oscillator are presented, followed by some selected applications. In the second part of this chapter the progress of regenerative thin-disk amplifier technology will be discussed including latest results from thin-disks of potassium yttrium and lutetium monoclinic double tungstate oxide.