Towards a kW-Class Picosecond Laser at 1 kHz

Secondary sources development such as X-rays for medical applications demand diode-pumped high-energy, high-power and high repetition rate picosecond lasers leading to a race to the kW milestone. Year after year, the pulse energy increased to few hundreds of millijoules at 1 kHz [1], but all the kW systems are based on the Yb:YAG thin disk technology which until now, to the best of our knowledge, has come short to deliver the full kilowatt level at 1 kHz. On the other side, cryogenically cooled bulk Yb:YAG amplifiers has shown its capabilities to reach 1 J at 500 Hz with 3.8 ps pulses [2].