Compact and tunable sub-20 fs laser source for ultrafast nonlinear applications

The paper reports on the use of ytterbium based solitary mode-locked oscillators, which can be pumped by very inexpensive laser diodes in the near infrared. For the experiments, a Yb:KGW oscillator is used which emits laser pulses at 1025 nm with durations in the range of 200 fs and average powers of several watts at 44 MHz repetition rate.