Compact ultrafast oscillators and high performance ultrafast amplifiers based on ytterbium-doped fibers

This chapter reviews the fundamentals and achievements of ultrashort pulse generation and amplification in ytterbium-doped fibers. Compact and ultrastable passively mode-locked fiber oscillators represent an ideal seed source for high performance femtosecond fiber amplification systems, which have been scaled towards kW-level average power and pulse energies well above the mJ-level. These laser systems will have significant impact in numerous scientific and industrial applications.