Tom Dietrich

Deformable mirrors for intra-cavity use in high-power thin-disk lasers

We present deformable mirrors for the intra-cavity use in high-power thin-disk laser resonators. The refractive power of these mirrors is continuously adaptable from -0.7 m-1 to 0.3 m-1, corresponding to radii of curvature ranging between 2.86 m (convex) and 6.67 m (concave). The optimized shape of the mirror membrane enables a very low peak-to-valley deviation from a paraboloid deformation over a large area. With the optical performance of our mirrors being equal to that of standard HR mirrors, we were able to demonstrate the tuning of the beam quality of a thin-disk laser in a range of M2 = 3 to M2 = 1 during laser operation at output powers as high as 1.1 kW.

Novel thin-disk oscillator concept for the generation of radially polarized femtosecond laser pulses

We report on the first demonstration of a radially polarized passively mode-locked thin-disk oscillator. Radial polarization was achieved by the use of a novel circular grating waveguide output coupler. We showed mode-locked operation up to a maximum average output power of 13.3 W with an optical efficiency of 21.8%. The degree of radial polarization of the emitted beam was measured to be 97±1%. The laser system generated pulses with a duration of 907 fs and an energy of 316 nJ corresponding to a peak power of 0.35 MW. To the best of our knowledge, these values exceed the performance of previously reported radially polarized mode-locked oscillator systems.

Investigations on ring-shaped pumping distributions for the generation of beams with radial polarization in an Yb:YAG thin-disk laser.

We present experimental investigations on the generation of radially polarized laser beams excited by a ring-shaped pump intensity distribution in combination with polarizing grating waveguide mirrors in an Yb:YAG thin-disk laser resonator. Hollow optical fiber components were implemented in the pump beam path to transform the commonly used flattop pumping distribution into a ring-shaped distribution. The investigation was focused on finding the optimum mode overlap between the ring-shaped pump spot and the excited first order Laguerre-Gaussian (LG(01)) doughnut mode. The power, efficiency and polarization state of the emitted laser beam as well as the thermal behavior of the disk was compared to that obtained with a standard flattop pumping distribution. A maximum output power of 107 W with a high optical efficiency of 41.2% was achieved by implementing a 300 mm long specially manufactured hollow fiber into the pump beam path. Additionally it was found that at a pump power of 280 W the maximum temperature increase is about 21% below the one observed with standard homogeneous pumping.

Highly-efficient continuous-wave intra-cavity frequency-doubled Yb:LuAG thin-disk laser with 1 kW of output power

We report on the generation of continuous-wave, intra-cavity frequency-doubled, multi-mode laser radiation in an Yb:LuAG thin-disk laser. Output powers of up to 1 kW at a wavelength of 515 nm were achieved at an unprecedented optical efficiency of 51.6% with respect to the pumping power of the thin-disk laser. The wavelength stabilization and spectral narrowing as well as the polarization selection, which is necessary for a stable and efficient second-harmonic generation, was achieved by the integration of a diffraction grating into the dielectric end mirror of the cavity, which exhibits a diffraction efficiency of 99.8%. At a frequency-doubled output power of 820 W the peak-to-valley power fluctuations measured during 100 minutes of laser operation amounted to only 8.2 W (1.0%). The beam parameter product of the frequency-doubled output was 3.4 mm·mrad (M2 ≈ 20), which is suitable for standard beam delivery using fibers with a core diameter of 100 µm and a NA of 0.2.

Intra-cavity compensation of wavefront distortions in kW-level thin-disk lasers

Thermally induced wavefront distortions have been a major limitation for the power scalability of high-brightness solid-state lasers. The concept of the thin-disk laser has led to significant improvement in this respect [1], enabling output powers in the multi-kW range both in multimode as well as in close to fundamental-mode operation [2, 3]. Even though significantly reduced in comparison to other types of lasers, however, thermally induced wavefront distortions in the thin-disk laser crystal eventually limit the scalability of the achievable output power at constant beam quality.

Efficient generation of cylindrically polarized beams in an Yb:YAG thin-disk laser enabled by a ring-shaped pumping distribution

The efficient generation of a cylindrically (radially or azimuthally) polarized LG01 mode was investigated using a ring-shaped pumping distribution in a high-power Yb:YAG thin-disk laser setup. This was realized by implementing a 300 mm long customized fused silica fiber capillary in the pump beam path of the pumping optics of a thin-disk laser. Furthermore, a grating waveguide mirror based on the leaky-mode coupling mechanism was used as one of the cavity end mirrors to allow sufficient reduction of the reflectivity of the polarization state to be suppressed in the resonator. In order to achieve efficient laser operation, an optimized mode overlap between the ring-shaped pump spot and the excited first order Laguerre-Gaussian doughnut mode is required. This was investigated theoretically by analyzing the intensity distribution generated by different fiber geometries using a commercially raytracing software (Zemax). The output power, polarization state and efficiency of the emitted laser beam were compared to that obtained with a standard flattop pumping distribution. In particular, the thermal behavior of the disk was investigated since the excessive fluorescence caused by the non-saturated excitation in the center of the homogeneously pumped disk leads to a strong heating of the crystal. This considerable heating source is avoided in the case of the ring-shaped pumping and a reduction of the temperature increase on the disk surface of about 21% (at 280 W of pump power) was observed. This should allow higher pump power densities without increasing the risk of damaging the disk or distorting the polarization purity. With a laser efficiency of 41.2% to be as high as in the case of the flattop pumping, a maximum output power of 107 W was measured.

Hybrid curvature and modal wavefront sensor

The crosstalk effect considerably limits the capability of holography-based modal wavefront sensing (HMWS) when measuring wavefronts with large aberrations. In this contribution, we introduce a curvature-based measurement technique into HMWS to extend the dynamic range and the sensitivity of HMWS via a compact holographic design. If the input aberrations are large, the dominating aberration modes are first detected via curvature sensing and compensated using a wavefront correcting device, e.g. a membrane mirror. The system then switches to HMWS to obtain better sensitivity and accuracy with reduced aberrations. Different approaches for the reconstruction of the wavefront have been tested and extensive simulations for different aberrations have been analyzed.