Open AccessIntra-oscillator high harmonic generation in a thin-disk laser operating in the 100-fs regime
Author(s) -
Julian Fischer,
Jakub Drs,
François Labaye,
Norbert Modsching,
Valentin J. Wittwer,
Thomas Südmeyer
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
optics express
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.394
H-Index - 271
ISSN - 1094-4087
DOI - 10.1364/oe.414444
Subject(s) - extreme ultraviolet , optics , high harmonic generation , laser , ultrashort pulse , pulse duration , physics , materials science , sapphire , optoelectronics
We demonstrate that Kerr lens modelocking is well-suited for operating an ultrafast thin-disk laser with intra-oscillator high harmonic generation (HHG) in the 100-fs pulse duration regime. Exploiting nearly the full emission bandwidth of the gain material Yb:YAG, we generate 105-fs pulses with an intracavity peak power of 365 MW and an intracavity average power of 470 W. We drive HHG in argon with a peak intensity of ∼7⋅10 13 W/cm 2 at a repetition rate of 11 MHz. Extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) light is generated up to the 31 st harmonic order (H31) at 37 eV, with an average power of ∼0.4 µW in H25 at 30 eV. This work presents a considerable increase in performance of XUV sources based on intra-oscillator HHG and confirms that this approach is a promising technology for simple and portable XUV sources at MHz repetition rates.