Development of Petawatt scale Ti:sapphire laser at 0.05 Hz repetition rate

Author

Yanovsky, V. ; Chvykov, V. ; Bahk, S.-W. ; Kalintchenko, G. ; TaPhuoc, K. ; Chang, Y.-C. ; Mourou, G.

Author_Institution

Center for Ultrafast Opt. Sci., Michigan Univ., Ann Arbor, MI, USA

fYear

2003

fDate

6-6 June 2003

Abstract

In our design of Petawatt scale Ti:sapphire laser ("Hercules") a pump laser based on high average power glass (QX-ND, Kigre, Inc) is used at the 100 TW stage. This pump laser generates 14 J of a frequency doubled output at 0.1 Hz repetition rate in 80 ns pulse. In this paper we present a design of a relatively simple and inexpensive extension of this laser allowing to generate pump energy 60-80 J, necessary to reach Petawatt powers. The pump laser consists of a Nd:YLF oscillator, a preamplifier and two 2-pass glass amplifiers with 16-mm diameter phosphate glass rods.

Keywords

high-speed optical techniques; lithium compounds; optical pumping; phosphate glasses; sapphire; solid lasers; titanium; yttrium compounds; 14 J; 16 mm; 2-pass glass amplifiers; 60 to 80 J; Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/:Ti; LiYF4:Nd; Nd:YLF oscillator; YLF:Nd; frequency doubled output; high average power glass; petawatt scale Ti:sapphire laser; phosphate glass rods; preamplifier; pump laser; repetition rate; Frequency; Glass; Laser excitation; Optical design; Optical pulse generation; Oscillators; Power generation; Power lasers; Pulse amplifiers; Pump lasers;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2003. CLEO '03. Conference on

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD, USA

Print_ISBN

1-55752-748-2

Type

conf

Filename

1297725