Abstract

Several fields of research would benefit from the development of new high energy, high average power laser systems. One example is laser driven x-ray generation that is typically based on joule class lasers with a repetition rate of a few hertz. However, to facilitate shorter measuring times, lasers with repetition rates on the order of kHz and a pulse energy of hundreds of mJ are required [1]. Such lasers are also ideally suited to drive few-cycle light sources based on the optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA). Terawatt peak powers can be reached with pump pulses of picosecond duration and hundreds of mJ of energy [2]. For multi-kHz repetition rates these requirements imply kW scale average powers. Thin-disk laser systems are currently approaching this regime of operation [3].

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