Cross thin slab kW-class Ti:Sapphire amplifiers

A scheme for cross thin slab (XTS) amplification is proposed, based on Ti:Sapphire (Ti:Sa), which reaches multi-mJ level ultrashort pulses with a kW average power. The laser crystal is pumped and cooled on two large surfaces to ensure uniform pump energy distribution and a high cooling efficiency. The extraction of energy is realized by multiple passes of seed pulses propagating in the plane perpendicular to the direction of pumping. The amplification and cooling performance of the XTS configuration was numerically simulated. Direct blue diode pumping was also considered to provide upscaling possibilities in the average power to the multiple kW regime with a high extraction efficiency. (paper)