Diode-pumped ytterbium-doped phosphate and tungstate regenerative amplifiers and ancillary investigations

This thesis focuses on the development of directly diode-pumped solid-state regenerative laser amplifiers. Our purpose is to build a compact, simple, reliable, and economical subpicosecond laser system by employing a direct diode-pumping scheme for real-world applications such as medical surgeries and micromachining. Ytterbium-doped phosphate glass (QX/Yb) and ytterbium-doped tungstate crystals (Yb:KYW and Yb:KGW) are used as the amplifier gain media, and their laser properties are discussed and compared with other ytterbium-doped materials. The same oscillator, stretcher, and compressor are used with each amplifier presented. Both end- and side-pumping configurations are implemented and compared wherever possible. Typically, an end-pumped laser has a higher efficiency, whereas a side-pumped laser has a simpler, and thus more compact setup. To improve the efficiency of a side-pumped laser, we have proposed and demonstrated a novel pumping scheme with the QX/Yb, amplifier. To match the elliptical beam from the pump diodes, we have designed and built cavities with an elliptical fundamental mode by using cylindrical optics. Millijoule, subpicosecond pulses have been produced from our QX/Yb regenerative amplifier using the proposed pumping scheme and an elliptic-mode cavity. The diode-pumped ytterbium-doped tungstate regenerative amplifiers in this thesis produced subpicosecond pulses with at least tens of microjoules of pulse energy at a kHz repetition rate, also using a cavity with an elliptical fundamental mode. A self-starting Kerr-lens mode-locked Yb:KYW oscillator directly pumped by diodes and a low-repetition-rate Yb:KGW regenerative amplifier pumped by a flashlamp-pumped Ti:sapphire laser are also presented as ancillary studies.