Diode-pumped Yb:YLF chirped-pulse regenerative amplifier for high average power operation

60 mJ chirped-pulse power was obtained using a diode-pumped regenerative amplifier with a cooled Yb:YLF crystal at 20 Hz repetition rate. After temporal compression, 36 mJ, 795 fs pulses were generated. Our numerical calculation shows that 100 mJ output power at 1 kHz would be obtained by using a sapphire-sandwiched laser material and a 2-pass amplification scheme in regenerative cavity.