Spectral-temporal management of Yb-doped fiber CPA-systems

To further scale the peak-power of state-of-the-art fiber CPA-systems, a careful optimization of the spectral as well as temporal dynamics is required. The wavelength dependence of the small-signal gain, as well as the saturation of the amplifier, strongly affect the signal bandwidth. For unsaturated amplifiers only a spectral optimization is required. It can be shown that both the spectral center and the width of the input spectrum strongly affect the output bandwidth. An optimization regarding these two parameters will be given. Design guidelines are presented. We develop a simple yet efficient model to simulate the impact of saturation in broadband Ytterbium-doped fiber CPA-systems. Using this model, we reveal that significant peak-power scaling up to 10 GW of current fiber CPA-systems is possible.