Femtosecond Yb-doped fiber laser system at 1 μm of wavelength with 100-nm bandwidth and variable pulse structure for accelerator diagnostics

Laser-based diagnostic systems play an increasingly important role in accelerator diagnostics in, for instance, electron bunch length measurements. To date, the laser system of choice for electro-optic experiments has been the Ti:sapphire laser, providing several nanojoules of pulse energies at fixed a repetition rate, which is not well suited to the bunch structure of accelerator facilities such as FLASH. Limited long-term stability and operability of Ti:sapphire systems are significant drawbacks for a continuously running measurement system requiring minimal maintenance and maximum uptime. We propose fiber lasers as a promising alternative with significant advantages. Gating of the pulse train to match the bunch profile is simple with fibercoupled modulators, in contrast to bulk modulators needed for Ti:sapphire lasers. An in-line fiber amplifier can boost the power, such that a constant pulse energy is maintained regardless of the chosen pulse pattern. Significantly, these lasers offer excellent robustness at a fraction of the cost of a Ti:sapphire laser and occupy a fraction of the optical table space.