New Materials for Short-Pulse Amplifiers

Abstract: Laser amplifiers seek high power, efficiency, and short pulse durations. Research laboratories in this field have focused their investigations toward new laser materials that can be efficiently diode pumped, sustain high-power pumping, and have broad emission bandwidth to achieve ultrashort pulse amplification. This is why, for more than ten years now, new Yb-doped materials have been intensively investigated. In the actual state of the art, they represent the more promising and successful materials for these kinds of applications. In this paper, we will do a short review of the last and more impacting discoveries and demonstrations in this field over the last few years. Index Terms: Laser, solid laser, optical amplifier, ultrafast laser, diode-pumped laser. Directly diode-pumped femtosecond lasers delivering high power is one of the hottest and most challenging current topics. From this point of view, many international researchers are investigating the use of Yb-doped materials. In fact, it is admitted now that only ytterbium-doped crystals can provide efficient femtosecond amplifiers at high repetition rate and high energy. Over the past decade, laser development using Yb-doped materials, especially crystals, has become one of the most active fields in laser research. It is now widely recognized that Yb-doped crystals have