Single-grating-mirror intracavity stretcher design for chirped pulse regenerative amplification

摘要

We report for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, an innovative design concept for intracavity pulse stretching in a regenerative amplifier, employing a single "grating-mirror" based on a leaky-mode grating-waveguide design. The very compact and flexible layout allows for femtosecond pulses to be in principle easily stretched up to nanosecond durations. The design has been tested in a diode-pumped Yb:CALGO regenerative amplifier followed by a standard transmission grating compressor. Sub-200-fs pulses (stretched pulses approximate to 110 ps) with 205-mu J energy at 20-kHz repetition rate have been demonstrated. In order to prove the robustness and potential for energy scaling of leaky-mode grating-waveguide intracavity stretcher, we generated stretched pulses with energies of up to approximate to 700 mu J (400-ps long) at a lower repetition rate of 10 kHz. A simple model is proposed for the study of the cavity in presence of induced spatial chirp. (C) 2015 Optical Society of America