Product Code: ICAL08_M803

High Average Power Ultrafast Amplifier for Micromachining Applications
Authors:
Martin Delaigue, Amplitude Systemes; Pessac France
Antoine Courjaud, Amplitude Systemes; Pessac France
Eric Mottay, Amplitude Systemes; Pessac France
Robert Braunschweig, Amplitude Laser; Cambridge MA USA
Presented at ICALEO 2008

Industrial applications of femtosecond lasers, notably in the field of precision micro-machining, are rapidly increasing. The quality and flexibility of the interaction process are well established. However, in order to fulfil the productivity requirement of industrial processes, it is necessary to continuously increase the average power of ultrafast lasers. For specific applications, such as in-depth drilling and cutting, it is also necessary to increase the pulse energy of ultrafast lasers.
Up to now most femtosecond amplified systems delivering mJ pulse energies are based on Ti:sapphire as gain medium which require rather complex pump lasers, and are also limited in average power.
We report on a high power, high energy Ytterbium diode-pumped femtosecond laser. Ytterbium lasers can be directly diode-pumped with low consumption, high reliability, telecom-class semiconductor laser diodes and are compatible with high power laser operation.
We demonstrate a directly diode-pumped femtosecond regenerative amplifier with up to 2 mJ pulse energy, 20W average power and pulse repetition rates up to 100 kHz. Chirped pulse amplification is applied in order to eliminate nonlinear effects and to avoid damage of optical components during the amplification process. These performances are the highest available today from an industrial, sub-picosecond diode-pumped ultrafast laser.