High-intracavity-power thin-disk laser for the alignment of molecules

TL;DR

This paper introduces a high-intracavity-power thin-disk laser system designed for strong molecular alignment experiments, enabling high electric field strengths suitable for use at modern X-ray light sources.

Contribution

It presents a novel laser setup based on Yb:YAG and Yb:Lu$_2$O$_3$ thin-disk lasers with high intracavity power, scalable for in-vacuum applications at high repetition rates.

Findings

Achieved intracavity power levels over 100 kW with pump power around 50 W.

Demonstrated multi-longitudinal-mode operation avoiding spatial-hole burning.

Proposed scalable system for generating fields of 10^{11} W/cm^2 for molecular alignment experiments.

Abstract

We propose a novel approach for strong alignment of gas-phase molecules for experiments at arbitrary repetition rates. A high-intracavity-power continuous-wave laser will provide the necessary ac electric field of $\!10^{10}$- $10^{11}~\text{W}/\text{cm}^2$. We demonstrate thin-disk lasers based on Yb:YAG and Yb:Lu$_2$O$_3$ in a linear high-finesse resonator providing intracavity power levels in excess of 100~kW at pump power levels on the order of 50~W. The multi-longitudinal-mode operation of this laser avoids spatial-hole burning even in a linear standing-wave resonator. The system will be scaled up as in-vacuum system to allow for the generation of fields of $10^{11}~\text{W}/\text{cm}^2$. This system will be directly applicable for experiments at modern X-ray light sources, such as synchrotrons or free-electron lasers, which operate at various very high repetition rates. This would allow to record molecular movies through temporally resolved diffractive imaging of fixed-in-space molecules, as well as the spectroscopic investigation of combined X-ray-NIR strong-field effects of atomic and molecular systems.