High-power directly diode-pumped femtosecond Yb:KGW lasers with optimized parameters

We report a diode-pumped Yb:KGW laser that is capable of operating as a Q-switched oscillator or as a regenerative amplifier with average power of more than 20 W. The laser is based on a dual-crystal configuration where the pump thermal load is distributed over relatively long two crystals. It permits a sufficiently large number of passes with low passive losses and maximizes the energy extraction efficiency. The amplification bandwidth was extended by spectral combining of two Yb:KGW crystals with spectrally shifted gain maxima, that allows to mitigate spectral gain narrowing and provides pulse length down to 200 fs after compression in a stretcher-compressor module. The output power saturated with increasing pump power and output beam quality was defined by aberration of thermal lenses. Optimization of laser cavity allows us to compensate thermal lens partially and provide output beams with quality M2<1.2. Efficient frequency doubling and tripling of high-power femtosecond Yb:KGW laser is demonstrated in a nonlinear BBO crystal. Second or third harmonic generation with respective conversion efficiency of 55% or 24% was achieved in a single-pass configuration.