The new power record for ultrashort laser pulses was achieved with the 2nd generation of the thin-disk multipass amplifier, which is currently developed at the IFSW, University of Stuttgart, in collaboration with Trumpf Laser GmbH.
In comparison to the first generation [1] mainly the cooling and the mounting of the optical elements were improved to increase the long-term stability. The number of laser beam passes through the amplifier, the number of pumping beam passes in the thin-disk crystal, and the pump power were also increased. 1.9 kW of average output power were achieved already in the first test of the actual system. The pulse repetition rate is 300 kHz leading to a pulse energy of 6.3 mJ. The system uses the same seed source (TruMicro5050, 115 W output power, 6.5 ps pulse duration) as reported in reference [1]. The experiments are ongoing to further scale the output power. The results will be published soon. This system is a further step towards a further increase of productivity in laser-based material processing such as ablating and cutting of CFRP [2].
Contact: Dr. Marwan Abdou Ahmed
[1] J. Negel et al., "Ultrafast thin-disk multipass laser amplifier delivering 1.4 kW (4.7 mJ, 1030 nm) average power converted to 820 W at 515 nm and 234 W at 343 nm," Opt. Express 23, 21064-21077 (2015).
[2] C. Freitag et al., "High-quality processing of CFRP with a 1.1-kW picosecond laser, "APPLIED PHYSICS A-MATERIALS SCIENCE & PROCESSING 119 (4), 1237-1243 (2015).
