Novel ultrafast laser design based on intracavity chirped volume Bragg grating (Conference Presentation)

Chirped Bragg Gratings (CBGs) in photo-thermo-refractive (PTR) glass allow stretching and compression of ultra-short pulses with high pulse energy and power and minimal beam distortions. PTR glass based CBGs can stretch pulses up to 1 ns while the duration of the recompressed pulses is nearly transform limited. Recent advances in the technology of CBGs in PTR glass enabled fabrication of chirped gratings with diffraction efficiencies exceeding 95% that allows their usage as intracavity elements. In this paper we discuss properties of Nd:Yag laser with CBGs used as output couplers.