50 W thin-disk laser with variable pulse duration

The laser system is based on an Yb:YAG thin-disk regenerative amplifier, which is operated in different operation modes in order to address broad spectrum of pulse durations. It is especially interesting for application development tasks, when different pulse durations can be tested to find the application optimum. For sub-picosecond pulse duration the dispersion of the regenerative amplifier output is compensated with a pair of diffraction gratings. Pulses with a full width at half maximum of 334 fs at an output power level of 30 W can be produced using a nonlinear spectrum broadening during amplification. Tuning of the distance between gratings or abandoning of the compressor allows for output pulse durations of several picoseconds with an output power of 60 W. A second seed source allows for pulse durations up to several nanoseconds. Further, the amplifier was operated in cavity-dumped or in Q-switched mode just by changing of the electrical control of the Pockels cell in the amplifier. The pulse durations range is extended, correspondingly, to 100 ns and even to microseconds.