Abstract

Thin-disk laser systems with high average output powers are promising candidates for pumping optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers (OPCPA) with a high efficiency. Here, pulses of ~1 ps pulse duration are used to pump the OPCPA chain, allowing for an efficient, ultrabroadband amplification, the spectrum of which can even support a few-cycle pulse duration [1]. The energy scaling of such OPCPA chains almost entirely relies on the availability of a suitable high energy, high average power ps pump source. By using the chirped pulse amplification (CPA) scheme, a diode-pumped Yb:YAG thin-disk regenerative amplifier has been shown to deliver ps pulses with hundreds of millijoules of energy while still maintaining an excellent beam quality (M² ≈ 1) [2-4].

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