Green sub-ps laser exceeding 400 W of average power

We present the world's first laser at 515 nm with sub-picosecond pulses and an average power of 445 W. To realize this beam source we utilize an Yb:YAG-based infrared laser consisting of a fiber MOPA system as a seed source, a rod-type pre-amplifier and two Innoslab power amplifier stages. The infrared system delivers up to 930 W of average power at repetition rates between 10 and 50 MHz and with pulse durations around 800 fs. The beam quality in the infrared is M-2 = 1.1 and 1.5 in fast and slow axis. As a frequency doubler we chose a Type-I critically phase-matched Lithium Triborate (LBO) crystal in a single-pass configuration. To preserve the infrared beam quality and pulse duration, the conversion was carefully modeled using numerical calculations. These take dispersion-related and thermal effects into account, thus enabling us to provide precise predictions of the properties of the frequency-doubled beam. To be able to model the influence of thermal dephasing correctly and to choose appropriate crystals accordingly, we performed extensive absorption measurements of all crystals used for conversion experiments. These measurements provide the input data for the thermal FEM analysis and calculation. We used a Photothermal Commonpath Interferometer (PCI) to obtain space-resolved absorption data in the bulk and at the surfaces of the LBO crystals. The absorption was measured at 1030 nm as well as at 515 nm in order to take into account the different absorption behavior at both occurring wavelengths.