Markus Loeser

High-efficiency 10 J diode pumped cryogenic gas cooled Yb:YAG multislab amplifier

We report on the first demonstration of a diode-pumped, gas cooled, cryogenic multislab Yb:YAG amplifier. The performance was characterized over a temperature range from 88 to 175 K. A maximum small-signal single-pass longitudinal gain of 11.0 was measured at 88 K. When amplifying nanosecond pulses, recorded output energies were 10.1 J at 1 Hz in a four-pass extraction geometry and 6.4 J at 10 Hz in a three-pass setup, corresponding to optical to optical conversion efficiencies of 21% and 16%, respectively. To our knowledge, this represents the highest pulse energy so far obtained from a cryo-cooled Yb-laser and the highest efficiency from a multijoule diode pumped solid-state laser system.

PEnELOPE: a high peak-power diode-pumped laser system for laser-plasma experiments

We introduce the directly diode-pumped PEnELOPE laser-system which is designed for a pulse energy of 150 J, a repetition rate of 1Hz and a pulse duration of 120 fs. The principle setup of amplifier and stretcher-compressor system as well as the pumping, energy extraction and cooling scheme of the power amplifiers will be reported. In this paper we focus on numerical modeling as well as design studies.

High-efficiency, room-temperature nanosecond Yb:YAG laser

Yb(3+)-doped gain media offer favorable properties for diode-pumped laser amplifiers for high-energy ns-pulses. To reach high optical-to-optical conversion efficiencies at room temperature however, very high and often impractical fluences are required both for pumping and extraction. Low temperature operation offers a solution, but the required cryogenic cooling systems add considerable complexity, bulkiness and cost. Multi-passing both pump and extraction beams through the gain medium is an alternative approach to overcome efficiency limitations at room temperature. In this article we present numerical and experimental results to this effect.We demonstrated ns-pulse output from a diode-pumped Yb:YAG amplifier at an energy of 566 mJ and an optical-to-optical efficiency of 20%, which is almost a doubling of the efficiency achieved with ns-lasers employing Yb(3+)-doped gain media at this energy level.

High-energy, ceramic-disk Yb:LuAG laser amplifier

We report the first short-pulse amplification results to several hundred millijoule energies in ceramic Yb:LuAG. We have demonstrated ns-pulse output from a diode-pumped Yb:LuAG amplifier at a maximum energy of 580 mJ and a peak optical-to-optical efficiency of 28% at 550 mJ. In cavity dumped operation of a nanosecond oscillator we obtained 1 mJ at up to 100 Hz repetition rate. A gain bandwidth of 5.4 nm was achieved at room temperature by measuring the small-signal single-pass gain. Furthermore, we compared our results with Yb:YAG within the same amplifier system.

Efficient laser-driven proton acceleration from cylindrical and planar cryogenic hydrogen jets

We report on recent experimental results deploying a continuous cryogenic hydrogen jet as a debris-free, renewable laser-driven source of pure proton beams generated at the 150 TW ultrashort pulse laser Draco. Efficient proton acceleration reaching cut-off energies of up to 20 MeV with particle numbers exceeding 109 particles per MeV per steradian is demonstrated, showing for the first time that the acceleration performance is comparable to solid foil targets with thicknesses in the micrometer range. Two different target geometries are presented and their proton beam deliverance characterized: cylindrical (∅ 5 μm) and planar (20 μm × 2 μm). In both cases typical Target Normal Sheath Acceleration emission patterns with exponential proton energy spectra are detected. Significantly higher proton numbers in laser-forward direction are observed when deploying the planar jet as compared to the cylindrical jet case. This is confirmed by two-dimensional Particle-in-Cell (2D3V PIC) simulations, which demonstrate that the planar jet proves favorable as its geometry leads to more optimized acceleration conditions.

Efficient burst mode amplifier for ultra-short pulses based on cryogenically cooled Yb 3+ :CaF 2

We present a novel approach for the amplification of high peak power femtosecond laser pulses at a high repetition rate. This approach is based on an all-diode pumped burst mode laser scheme. In this scheme, pulse bursts with a total duration between 1 and 2 ms are be generated and amplified. They contain 50 to 2000 individual pulses equally spaced in time. The individual pulses have an initial duration of 350 fs and are stretched to 50 ps prior to amplification. The amplifier stage is based on Yb3+:CaF2 cooled to 100 K. In this amplifier, a total output energy in excess of 600 mJ per burst at a repetition rate of 10 Hz is demonstrated. For lower repetition rates the total output energy per burst can be scaled up to 915 mJ using a longer pump duration. This corresponds to an efficiency as high as 25% of extracted energy from absorbed pump energy. This is the highest efficiency, which has so far been demonstrated for a pulsed Yb3+:CaF2 amplifier.

Broadband, diode pumped Yb:SiO 2 multicomponent glass laser

Fabrication, spectroscopic properties, and laser performance of a Yb:SiO(2) multicomponent glass have been investigated in this paper. The glass system composed of SiO(2), Al(2)O(3), and La(2)O(3) excels in terms of a high thermal stress resistance compared to other laser glasses. The laser experiments were conducted with a 3.4 mm thick and 0.9 mol. % Y(2)O(3) doped sample. A maximum slope efficiency of 51%, a maximum optical to optical efficiency of 42%, and a tuning range from 1010-1090 nm was realized. Due to the promising laser properties and a straightforward fabrication technique it may well qualify as an alternative gain medium in high-energy, ultrashort pulse laser systems.

Temperature dependent measurement of absorption and emission cross sections for various Yb 3+ doped laser materials

For laser performance simulations, optical properties of applied active materials have to be exactly known. Here we report on temperature dependent emission and absorption cross section measurements for Yb:YAG, Yb:CaF2 and Yb:FP15-glass. The temperature of the samples was aligned in steps of 20 K between 100 K and room temperature with a liquid nitrogen driven cryostat. Absorption spectra were obtained with a fiber coupled white light source and fluorescence spectra by excitation with a fiber coupled 10W laser diode at 970 nm. All spectral measurements were performed with a scanning spectrum analyzer, providing a spectral resolution down to 0.05 nm. By applying the McCumber relation in combination with the Fuchtbauer-Ladenburg method, we were able to obtain a valid emission cross section over the whole range of interest from the measured data.

First results with the novel petawatt laser acceleration facility in Dresden

We report on first commissioning results of the DRACO Petawatt ultra-short pulse laser system implemented at the ELBE center for high power radiation sources of Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf. Key parameters of the laser system essential for efficient and reproducible performance of plasma accelerators are presented and discussed with the demonstration of 40 MeV proton acceleration under TNSA conditions as well as peaked electron spectra with unprecedented bunch charge in the 0.5 nC range.

High-energy diode-pumped D2O-cooled multislab Yb:YAG and Yb:QX-glass lasers.

We investigated the lasing performance of a multislab Yb:QX and Yb:YAG laser amplifiers using a facet-cooled design. Di-deuterium oxide (D2O) was used as the coolant flowing between the active slabs with the pump and laser light passing through the very low absorbing heavy-water films. A square pump profile at a maximum intensity of 40  kW/cm2 drove the amplifier with a peak fluence of 5.5  J/cm2 and a pulse duration of 6 ns. We demonstrated a maximum pulse energy of 1 J for each gain medium as well as a repetition rate of 10 Hz for Yb:YAG and 1 Hz for Yb:QX glass, thus showing the feasibility and scalability of directly water-cooled, diode-pumped, high-energy short-pulse lasers.