Generation of 100 W, millijoule-class picosecond laser from a single-stage Yb:YAG dual-crystal bulk amplifier

We demonstrate a dual-crystal Yb:YAG bulk regenerative amplifier that delivers a hundred-watt average power and millijoule-class pulse energy. The repetition rate of the presented laser is tunable from 50 kHz to 300 kHz, with the highest pulse energy and laser power of 1.9 mJ and 108.9 W, respectively. This presents the highest average power we know of for a single-stage Yb:YAG bulk picosecond laser. Profiting from thermally insensitive dual-crystal regenerative cavity design and the exceptional thermomechanical properties of the Yb:YAG crystals, both the amplification efficiency and beam quality barely deteriorated as pump power increased. The compressed spectral bandwidth and pulse duration are 1.02 nm and 1.45 ps, respectively, with a compression efficiency of 92.7%. The presented laser source could be employed as the pre-pulse for extreme ultraviolet pump source for optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier, or as the front end for high-power thin-disk/Inno-slab lasers.