High-contrast, high-intensity laser pulse generation using a nonlinear preamplifier in a Ti:sapphire laser system

We report a high-contrast, high-intensity Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse amplification system that incorporates a nonlinear preamplifier based on optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA). By cooling the Ti:sapphire crystal in the final amplifier down to 77 K, the chirped-pulses are amplifie...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Optics letters 2008-04, Vol.33 (7), p.645-647
Main Authors: KIRIYAMA, Hiromitsu, MORI, Michiaki, DAIDO, Hiroyuki, KIMURA, Toyoaki, TAJIMA, Toshiki, NAKAI, Yoshiki, SHIMOMURA, Takuya, TANOUE, Manabu, AKUTSU, Atushi, KONDO, Shuji, KANAZAWA, Shuhei, OKADA, Hajime, MOTOMURA, Tomohiro
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Doped-insulator lasers and other solid state lasers
Exact sciences and technology
Fundamental areas of phenomenology (including applications)
Lasers
Nonlinear optics
Optical parametric oscillators and amplifiers
Optics
Physics
Ultrafast processes
optical pulse generation and pulse compression
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We report a high-contrast, high-intensity Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse amplification system that incorporates a nonlinear preamplifier based on optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA). By cooling the Ti:sapphire crystal in the final amplifier down to 77 K, the chirped-pulses are amplified to 2.9 J at a 10 Hz repetition rate without a thermal lensing effect. Pulse compression down to 19 fs duration obtained after amplification indicates a peak power of 80 TW. With the OPCPA, the temporal contrast is significantly improved to better than 7x10(-9) in a few picoseconds interval prior to the main laser pulse.
ISSN:0146-9592
1539-4794
DOI:10.1364/ol.33.000645