Multi-Angle VECSEL Cavities for Dispersion Control and Peak-Power Scaling

We present a novel cavity design for vertical external cavity surface emitting lasers (VECSELs) enabling multiple interactions with the gain structure under different angles in a single round trip. This allows for a low round-trip group delay dispersion (GDD) despite using high-gain resonant VECSEL structures possessing pronounced resonances in their reflective GDD profile. Femtosecond-regime pulses with an average output power of 1.14 W and record peak intensities for mode-locked VECSELs of 6.3 kW are presented with simulations demonstrating the GDD compensating mechanism employed in this scheme.