High-average power ultrafast Yb: Innoslab amplifier

The state of the art of Yb:Innoslab femtosecond amplifiers is presented. Diode-pumped Innoslab amplifiers are designed for a good thermal management and low nonlinearity and enable ultrafast laser systems with high average power and almost diffraction limited beam quality. The presented compact femtosecond oscillator-Yb:Innoslab amplifier MOPA provide nearly transform and diffraction limited 640 fs pulses at 620 W average output power and 20 MHz repetition rate. By cascading two amplifiers an average output power of 1.1 kW and peak power of 80 MW is achieved in a single, linearly polarized beam. The specific properties and scaling laws of Yb:Innoslabs are discussed.