Petawatt lasers based on hybrid, OPCPA-Nd:glass amplification

Author

Gaul, Erhard ; Martinez, Mikael ; Blakeney, Joel ; Ringuette, Martin ; Hammond, Doug ; Jochmann, Axel ; Escamilla, Ramiro ; Borger, Teddy ; Dyer, Gilless ; Ditmire, Todd

Author_Institution

Univ. of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

fYear

2009

fDate

14-19 June 2009

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

1

Abstract

A Petawatt laser based on hybrid optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) and mixed Nd:glass has been demonstrated. This concept enables peak powers which can be scaled significantly beyond one petawatt. Higher power lasers enable access to unprecedented scientific research in the studies of high intensity physics. In this paper we discuss the laser, the potential of scaling to higher peak power and the first experiments. The laser system starts with a 100 fs pulses centered around 1058 nm from a commercial tunable Titanium:sapphire oscillator which are stretched to 112 ps/nm or about 1.8 ns. The bandwidth of the output pulse is sufficient for 115 fs pulses.

Keywords

chirp modulation; high-speed optical techniques; laser beams; laser tuning; neodymium; optical glass; optical parametric oscillators; optical pulse compression; sapphire; solid lasers; titanium; Al₂O₃:Ti; JkJk:Nd; glass amplification; laser tuning; optical parametric chirped pulse amplification; optical pulse compression; petawatt laser power; time 1.8 ns; time 100 fs; time 100 ns; time 115 fs; Chirp; Laser theory; Nonlinear optics; Optical pulses; Oscillators; Physics; Power lasers; Pulse amplifiers; Stimulated emission; Tunable circuits and devices;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics 2009 and the European Quantum Electronics Conference. CLEO Europe - EQEC 2009. European Conference on

Conference_Location

Munich

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-4079-5

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-4080-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CLEOE-EQEC.2009.5196351

Filename

5196351