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We report on a laser system based on thin-disk technology and chirped pulse amplification, providing output pulse energies of 200 mJ at a 5 kHz repetition rate. The amplifier contains a ring-type cavity and two thin Yb:YAG disks, each pumped by diode laser systems providing up to 3.5 kW power at a 969 nm wavelength. The average output power of more than 1 kW is delivered in an excellent output beam characterized by $M^2=1.1$. The output pulses are compressed to 1.1 ps at full power with a pair of dielectric gratings.

We produce 1.5 cycle (10.5 fs), 1.2 mJ, 3 kHz carrier-envelope-phase-stable pulses at 2.1 μm carrier wavelength, from a three-stage optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier system, pumped by an optically synchronized 1.6 ps Yb:YAG thin disk laser. A chirped periodically poled lithium niobate crystal is used to generate the ultrabroad spectrum needed for a 1.5 cycle pulse through difference frequency mixing of spectrally broadened pulse from a Ti:sapphire amplifier. It will be an ideal tool for producing isolated attosecond pulses with high photon energies.

We report a 100 W, 20 mJ, 1-ps, all-Yb:YAG thin-disk regenerative amplifier seeded by a microjoule-level Yb:YAG thin-disk Kerr-lens mode-locked oscillator. The regenerative amplifier is implemented in a chirped pulse amplification system and operates at an ambient temperature in air, delivering ultrastable output pulses at a 5 kHz repetition rate and with a root mean square power noise value of less than 0.5%. Second harmonic generation of the amplifier’s output in a 1.5 mm-thick BBO crystal results in more than 70 W at 515 nm, making the system an attractive source for pumping optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers in the visible and near-infrared spectral ranges.

The ability to resolve the complete electric field of laser pulses from terahertz to mid-infrared spectral ranges has enriched time-domain spectroscopy for decades. Field-resolved measurements in this range have been performed routinely in ambient air by various techniques like electro-optic sampling, photoconductive switching, field-induced second harmonic generation, and time stretch photonics. On the contrary, resolving the electric field of light at the near-infrared spectral range has been limited to attosecond streaking and other techniques that require operation in vacuum. Recent advances are circumventing these shortcomings and extending the direct, ambient air field detection of light to petahertz frequencies. In the first part of this letter, recent field-resolved techniques are reviewed. In the second part, different approaches for temporal scanning are discussed, as the temporal resolution of the time-domain methods is prone to temporal jitter. The review concludes by discussing technological obstacles and emerging applications of such advancements.

We demonstrate an efficient hybrid-scheme for nonlinear pulse compression of high-power thin-disk oscillator pulses to the sub-10 fs regime. The output of a home-built, 16 MHz, 84 W, 220 fs Yb:YAG thin-disk oscillator at 1030 nm is first compressed to 17 fs in two nonlinear multipass cells. In a third stage, based on multiple thin sapphire plates, further compression to 8.5 fs with 55 W output power and an overall optical efficiency of 65% is achieved. Ultrabroadband mid-infrared pulses covering the spectral range 2.4- 8 µ m were generated from these compressed pulses by intra-pulse difference frequency generation.