The performance of industrial ultrafast lasers with average power ranging from 10-1000 Watts depends on their wavelength, pulse duration, total power, and repetition rate. However, variability in laser performance, despite similar characteristics and manufacturing, indicates the current metrics are not enough. Here we introduce the power figure of merit (PFM), to quantify the power that resides within the short pulses as opposed to the background light, or ‘dark energy’ between the pulses. We introduce take advantage of linear sampling using photon counting methods to quantify PFM and demonstrate its use on lasers with PFM ranging from 0.9 to 0.995.
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