Direct Diode Pumped 100-200kHz (200W) Ti:Sapphire Ultrafast Laser System for Cost Effective EUV Generation in Hollow Waveguides.

Currently, the most successful approach for table top soft-Xray and EUV (Extreme Ultra-Violet) sources, is that of High Harmonic Generation (HHG), where a high intensity pulses are used to drive frequency conversion from a noble gas in a hollow core fiber. This configuration allows phase matching, and converts the near to mid-IR drive laser to photon energies & gt; 1.6keV. There are two main approaches to generating ultrafast light as a drive laser for HHG, first is standard Ti:sapphire lasers which can generate extremely short pulses. The second is the relatively new technique of optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA). While both methods have been successful, OPCPA is not yet commercially viable, and suffers from instabilities, and damage due to the high intensities required for amplification. It is a promising area that needs much further research. Ti:sapphire, on the other hand, has been commercially viable for decades, and is the ubiquitous choice for ultrafast amplified systems. However, Ti:sapphire systems suffer from its reliance on expensive green pump lasers, and this has forced the investigation for alternatives such as OPCPA. Recently, KMLabs with its collaborators at Colorado School of Mines, has been successful in demonstrating the worlds first Kerr lens modelocked ultrafast oscillator, using 445nm high power blue diodes, ushering in a new era for Ti:sapphire systems, and a two order of magnitude reduction in pump laser cost ($20,000, to $200). In this SBIR, we plan to take the next step in furthering this research to include an amplifier based on direct diode pumping of Ti:sapphire, and then converting the output to the EUV through HHG for BES applications.