Powerscaling of Ultrafast Lasers: New Solid State Lasers Pave the Way to Transfer Femtosecond Technology to Industry

Today, ultra‐short laser pulses have found widespread applications in metrology, atomic, molecular, solid‐state, plasma and nuclear physics. Ultra‐precise machining of nearly every material is possible based on an almost non‐thermal processing. Pumping of optical parametric oscillators and amplifiers permit almost any wavelength and pulse duration. High order harmonic generation in gases provides laser like brilliance and coherence in the XUV wavelength range. This article compares fiber, thin‐disk and Innoslab ultrafast amplifiers in terms of power scalability, beam quality and efficiency.