Performance of the Yb:Lu2O3 laser crystal in diode-pumped femtosecond oscillators and high-power regenerative amplifiers

We investigated the performance of the laser gain medium Yb:Lu2O3 in a low-power oscillator and a high-power regenerative amplifier. Almost Fourier transform limited 78-fs pulses were demonstrated in the low-power, SESAM mode-locked oscillator pumped with a single-mode fiber-coupled laser diode. Exploiting the excellent thermomechanical properties of Yb:Lu2O3, we were able to achieve up to 22.2 W of average output power at a repetition rate of 500 kHz and 670-fs long pulses with the regenerative bulk amplifier. Experiments on further power up-scaling and pulse duration shortening are in progress. Up to 65 W were already proved in preliminary tests in cw regime.