Coherent has expanded its family of ultra-fast laser amplifiers with the new Libra-HE+ which, it claims, is now the highest-power one-box, single-stage ultra-fast amplifier available. It delivers pulse energy > 5 mJ (at a 1 kHz repetition rate) with a choice of pulse widths: <40 fs or 100fs.
With its beam quality and stable output, this makes the Libra-HE+ an ideal pump for tunable optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) such as Coherent’s OperA Solo. This combination can serve as a simple and compact tunable source for ultra-fast studies in photochemistry, solid-state research, and biology. Its rugged stability and operational simplicity means it is particularly well suited for use as a shared resource in a multi-user facility.
As with other Coherent amplifier products, the geometry of the titanium:sapphire gain crystal in the new Libra-HE+ enables water-only cooling which simplifies operation and lowers the cost of ownership as compared to thermo-electric or cryogenic cooling. The single regenerative amplifier stage in the Libra-HE+ minimises both overall size and system cost, while resulting in superior output beam quality (M² < 1.3) and energy stability (<0.5% rms).