88 W 0.5 mJ femtosecond laser pulses from two coherently combined fiber amplifiers

The generation of 0.5 mJ femtosecond laser pulses by coherent combining of two high power high energy fiber chirped-pulse amplifiers is reported. The system is running at a repetition frequency of 175 kHz producing 88 W of average power after the compressor unit. Polarizing beam splitters have been used to realize an amplifying Mach-Zehnder interferometer, which has been stabilized with a Hansch-Couillaud measurement system. The stabilized system possesses a measured residual rms phase difference fluctuation between the two branches as low as lambda/70 rad at the maximum power level. The experiment proves that coherent addition of femtosecond fiber lasers can be efficiently and reliably performed at high B-integral and considerable thermal load in the individual amplifiers. (C) 2011 Optical Society of America