Diode-Pumped 13 W Yb:KGW Femtosecond Laser

Abstract

KGW is an important laser crystal platform for ultrafast solid-state lasers because it provides a broad gain bandwidth and strong performance under diode pumping.

In Yb:KGW form, it supports compact femtosecond oscillators with high optical efficiency and pulse durations in the few-hundred-femtosecond range.

This makes the crystal very attractive for ultrafast spectroscopy, precision machining, and seed generation for amplifiers.

Performance characteristics

For 32.7 W of incident pump power, the reported Yb:KGW oscillator delivers 261 fs pulses with maximum average output power of 13.0 W at 1039 nm and 68.4 MHz repetition rate.

The single-pulse energy reaches 190 nJ with a peak power of 0.72 MW, while the optical-to-optical efficiency reaches 39.8% and the slope efficiency reaches 64.4%.

The power stability is better than 0.543% RMS over 2 h, which is important for long-term ultrafast operation.

Application value

This Yb:KGW source is highly suitable for ultrafast micromachining, pump-probe experiments, nonlinear frequency conversion, and amplifier seeding.

It also shows why KGW remains a strong crystal choice for practical diode-pumped femtosecond platforms.