Polarisation maintaining 100W Yb-fiber MOPA producing μJ pulses tunable in duration from 1 to 21 ps

This paper demonstrates a single polarisation, 1.06 mu m Yb-doped fiber MOPA, delivering 21 ps pulses in a diffraction limited beam at repetition rates of up to 908 MHz and average output power of 100 W. The maximum pulse energy was 1.7 mu J at a repetition rate of 56 MHz, with corresponding peak power of 85 kW. The 100 W power was limited by available diode pump power and scaling to higher power levels is discussed. We also report self-phase-modulation based pulse compression which produced pulse durations as short as 1.1 ps from an external grating compressor. Using 4.2 ps pulses at a repetition rate of 227 MHz enabled 26 W of visible laser power (50% SHG efficiency) to be demonstrated. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America