We report on the design of a quasi-monolithic fiber chirped pulse amplification (FCPA) system operating at 1040 nm. Chirped-pulse amplification has been achieved using an all-solid step-index PM VLMA Yb-doped fiber, designed and drawn at Photonics Bretagne. The amplifier is integrated to the system through an internally developed mode field adapter (MFA), and bended with a 14 cm diameter, giving a truly single-mode behavior. 540 fs pulses are obtained without any fiber length optimization. An average power of 50 W has been achieved at the fundamental repetition rate of the laser, but also energies up to 41 µJ per pulse at lower repetition rate, pump power limited. The pulses are stretched using a thermally–controlled tunable chirped fibered Bragg grating (CFBG), allowing fine dispersion tuning, and compressed using a chirped volume Bragg grating (CVBG).
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