200 kHz electro-optic switch for ultrafast laser systems

Abstract

A method for obtaining very high electro-optic switching rates is demonstrated and employed for regenerative amplification of ultrashort pulses at high repetition rates. The intracavity polarization switch consists of a transverse-field BBO Pockels cell and a dielectric thin film polarizer. By multiple-shift usage of a single BBO crystal as Pockels cell, it is possible to keep thermal dissipation losses in the Pockels cell driver below 200 W. Using this intracavity polarization switch in an ultrafast thin-disk Yb:KYW regenerative amplifier, pulse energies of about 9 μJ with pulse durations of 280 fs at repetition rates of 200 kHz were generated.