Femtosecond laser pumped by high-brightness coherent polarization locked diodes

Abstract

We demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, the use of a coherent polarization locked diode as the high-brightness pump source for a femtosecond laser. Four diode emitters are coherently locked to produce more than $5\mathrm{W}$ linearly polarized, narrow linewidth, and single-lobed pump beam. This gives $>10\times$ brightness improvement over the conventional diode array. The diode beam is then used to pump a Yb:KYW laser to obtain $2\mathrm{W}$ output with 57% slope efficiency in cw laser operation. By using a saturable absorber mirror, we achieved cw mode-locking operation with a $177\mathrm{fs}$ pulse width at an average power of $0.55\mathrm{W}$.

© 2011 Optical Society of America

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