Highly efficient optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification based on BiB3O6 and β-BaB2O4 crystals at low pump intensity

We report a very high signal gain of 1.13 × 10⁷ at a low pump intensity of 260 MW/cm² in a two-stage optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA), which is used as a pre-amplifier for a short-pulse front-end Nd: glass high-energy laser system. A signal energy of 0.17 nJ was amplified to 2 mJ with a central wavelength of 1053 nm and a repetition rate of 10 Hz using the OPCPA with a 15 mm-long BBO crystal at optical parametric amplifier (OPA) stage 1 and a 12 mm-long BiBO crystal at OPA stage 2.     

Generation of high-contrast and high-intensity laser pulses using an OPCPA preamplifier in a double CPA, Ti:sapphire laser system

We demonstrate a high-contrast, high-intensity double chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) Ti:sapphire laser system using an optical parametric chirped-pulse (OPCPA) pre- amplifier. By injecting cleaned microjoule seed pulses into the OPCPA, a temporal contrast greater than 10¹⁰ within picosecond times before the main femtosecond pulse is demonstrated with an output pulse energy of 1.7 J and a pulse duration of 30 fs, corresponding to a peak power of 60 TW at a 10 Hz repetition rate. This system uses a cryogenically-cooled Ti:sapphire final amplifier and generates focused peak intensities in excess of 10²⁰ W/cm².     

Demonstration of highly efficient broadband amplification in a optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier system

We have demonstrated highly efficient broadband amplification by an optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) system that uses high energy seed pulses. The OPCPA consists of three type I B-barium borate (BBO) crystals pumped by a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. We successfully amplified the microjoule level seed pulses to 78 mJ with a pump-to-signal optical conversion efficiency of 26% at a 10 Hz repetition rate. To our knowledge these results represent the most optically efficient OPCPA to date pumped by a typical Q-switched laser.     

Broadband femtosecond OPCPA system driven by the single-shot narrow-band iodine photodissociation laser SOFIA

A two-stage optical parametric amplifier driven by a frequency-tripled beam from the high-energy iodine laser system SOFIA was built. This single-shot Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse-Amplification facility (OPCPA) and the system synchronizing the pump and signal pulses are described in detail. The chirped seed pulse of a Ti:sapphire oscillator running at the central wavelength of 800?nm is amplified in the two-stage (LBO and KDP) optical parametric amplifier over 10⁸ times. The amplified spectral bandwidth of 68?nm corresponds to the pulse duration of 14?fs when a transform-limited pulse is assumed. This implies a compressed pulse of TW power. Systematic gain measurements reveal a good match with the theoretical predictions. Signal and idler beam fluence profiles are presented. The suitability of the iodine photo-dissociation laser as a pump source for the OPCPA technique is thus proved for the first time experimentally. A distinctive feature of the iodine laser is its very narrow gain bandwidth (<0.1?cm^?1) and, therefore, the conventional chirped-pulse amplification technique does not lead to pulse durations at the femtosecond level.     

Non-collinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier for few-cycle pulses

Modified parametric coupled equations for three-wave interaction in non-collinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) are presented, in which the effects from the non-collinear configuration have been taken into account. By utilizing this new model, a two-stage OPCPA system based on a BBO crystal is numerically calculated with a split-step Fourier transform algorithm. Tracing the dynamics of the signal wave in the crystal reveals that in the first stage spectral gain narrowing occurs due to the weak input signal intensity and the non-uniform temporal distribution of the pump light. However, in the saturation regime the spectrum of the signal will be broadened as a consequence of back conversion. The simulation shows that it is crucial to correctly control the experimental parameters to balance both processes. For maximizing the energy-bandwidth product (EBP), an optimized configuration is sought by examining several parameters such as pump intensity, seed energy and crystal length. With a pump intensity of 7.75 GW/cm² and a crystal length between 3.75 and 4.25 mm pulses with a sub-10 fs duration can be amplified with a total gain of up to 1.7×10⁶.     

Development of a high-contrast,high-peak power,Ti:Sapphire/OPCPA laser system

We report on a high-contrast, high-peak power laser system, which combines both conventional laser amplification and optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) techniques. By employing an OPCPA system after a regenerative amplifier, we have enhanced the prepulse contrast by six orders of magnitude. A prepulse contrast of better than 4.4 × 10^?11 has been measured with a high-energy broadband pulse of 24 mJ at a 10 Hz repetition rate from the OPCPA system. With a subsequent four-pass Ti:sapphire amplifier, we have achieved an amplified energy of 279 mJ and an ultrashort recompressed amplified pulse duration of 23.5 fs. We also discuss the basic design aspects and present our preliminary experimental investigations for higher energy operation to a multijoule.     

Optical parametric chirped pulse amplification based on photonic crystal fibre

A compact two-stage optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier based on photonic crystal fibre is demonstrated.A 1064-nm soliton pulse is obtained in a home-made photonic crystal fibre (PCF) with femtosecond pulse pumping and then amplified to 2 mJ in an Nd:YAG regenerative amplifier.After the amplified pulses pass through the LBO crystal,the 532-nm double-frequency light with an energy of 0.8 mJ and a duration of over 100 ps at 10-Hz repetition rate is generated as a pump source in the following two-stage optical parametric amplification (OPA).The 850-nm chirped signal light gain from the stretcher is 1.5×10 4 in the first-stage OPA while it is 120 in the second-stage OPA.The total signal gain of optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) can reach 1.8×10 6.     

Generation and amplification of dual-color femtosecond pulses by a noncollinear optical parametric up-conversion process

Noncollinear optical parametric up-conversion generation and amplification are realized in a thick β-barium borate (BBO) crystal, and a couple of visible femtosecond up-conversion laser pulses can be achieved by a femtosecond pulse at 800 nm as the pump sources. The theoretical and experimental results indicate that there exist phase-matching conditions for dual-color noncollinear parametric up-conversion generation and amplification, and their wavelengths can be tuned by rotating the BBO crystal. This parametric up-conversion generation and amplification can be attributed to three and five-wave mixing in a thick BBO crystal, and it shows the potential application on optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) to generate multi-color ultraviolet or visible femtosecond laser pulses pumped directly by femtosecond fundamental laser pulses without frequency-doubling or tripling.     

Iodine photodissociation laser SOFIA with MOPO-HF as?a?solid-state oscillator

The hybrid iodine photodissociation laser SOFIA has been constructed. The pulse feeding the amplifier chain is the idler wave of an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) tuned to the atomic iodine transition at 1315 nm. This solid-state oscillator enables ps-synchronization to other laser systems. A homemade automatic stabilization of the OPO idler wave as to wavelength and pointing ensures long-term stable operation of the whole system. The active medium of the SOFIA amplifiers is a mixture of C₃F₇I and He. The SOFIA pulses are frequency-tripled in two KD*P crystals and then serve as the driver in a two-stage optical parametric amplification scheme in which chirped broadband Ti:sapphire laser pulses are amplified (OPCPA).     

1.5 mJ, 6.4 fs parametric chirped-pulse amplification system at 1 kHz

We demonstrate an optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) system with the pulse energy of 1.5 mJ at a 1 kHz repetition rate. The newly developed 100 ps Ti:sapphire pump laser system, which was optically synchronized with OPCPA seed pulses, delivered 10 mJ, 400 nm pump pulses. After three-stage parametric amplification, recompression of the amplifier output from 45 ps to 6.4 fs was performed. The pulse width of 6.4 fs is, to our knowledge, the shortest ever obtained by OPCPA, and the average power of 1.5 W (1.5 mJ, 1 kHz) is believed to be the highest among few-cycle OPCPA systems.     

Hundred mJ, sub-picoseconds, high temporal contrast OPCPA/Yb:YAG ceramic thin disk hybrid laser system

The authors have demonstrated an optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA)/Yb:YAG ceramic thin disk hybrid laser system having hundred mJ level pulse energy sub-picosecond pulse duration with high temporal contrast. At an input chirped-pulse energy of 3.8?mJ from an OPCPA preamplifier an output energy of 130?mJ has been generated from multipass diode-pumped Yb:YAG ceramic thin disk amplifier. A recompressed pulse duration of 450?fs with a contrast level of less than 7.2×10^?9 at ?150?ps before the main pulse has been obtained. The contrast level is the highest value achieved in Yb:YAG chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) laser system at 100?mJ level.     

光学参变啁啾脉冲放大相位失配啁啾脉冲频谱整形新方法

相位匹配是实现高效光学参变啁啾脉冲放大(OPCPA)能量转换的关键之一,通过对几种常用非线性晶体的光学参变啁啾脉冲放大过程进行数值模拟研究,结果表明一定程度的相位失配不但能增加光学参变啁啾脉冲放大增益带宽,而且会使啁啾脉冲光谱强度分布中间凹陷。提出利用光学参变啁啾脉冲放大相位失配放大作为啁啾脉冲频谱整形的新方法,通过理论分析和模拟计算,找到了光学参变啁啾脉冲放大相位失配啁啾脉冲频谱整形效果的控制量;并对几种常用非线性晶体在简并、近简并、非简并等条件下的光学参变啁啾脉冲放大相位失配放大特性进行了比较。     

A hybrid OPCPA/Nd:phosphate glass multi-terawatt laser system for seeding of a petawatt laser

To enhance radiographic abilities on its Z-Accelerator, Sandia National Laboratories is incorporating a petawatt laser system into the existing Z-Backlighter laser facility. As part of this work, a short-pulse laser has been constructed to seed the larger Beamlet type Nd:phosphate glass slab amplifiers. This seed laser consists of an optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) system joined to a Nd:phosphate glass rod amplifier system in order to achieve multi-Joule sub-picosecond operation. The rod amplifier system has been modeled using the Miró code which shows good agreement with the experimental results. This system can achieve focal intensities up to 10¹⁸ W/cm² at a repetition rate of once every 20 min and has been applied to produce k-alpha X-rays in copper.     

High-power output from a compact OPCPA laser system

With a tabletop hybrid Nd:YAG-Nd:glass laser as pump source, a compact optical parametric chirpedpulse amplification(OPCPA)laser system with a peak output power of 16.7 TW and a pulse duration of120 fs has been demonstrated.Chirped pulses are amplified from 50 pJ to more than 3.1 J with an energygain of above 6×10~(10)by three LBO optical parametric amplifiers with a pump energy of 12.4 J at 532nm.After compression, a final output of 2.0-J/120-fs pulse is obtained. To the best of our knowledge,itis the highest peak output power from an OPCPA laser so far.In addition, a practical design of 1-PWlaser system based on the technique of OPCPA is also proposed.     

Intense tunable picosecond pulses generated by parametric amplification in β-BaB2O4

Amplified spontaneous emission of a dye cell is parametrically amplified in barium betaborate (BBO) crystals. Pumping the system by the third harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser a tuning range from 3500 to 25080 cm^–1 is accessible with energy conversion efficiencies of several percent. Properties of ultrashort light pulses in the visible and UV spectral range are presented. A spectral width of 10 cm^–1 and a pulse duration of approximately 20 ps are measured.     

Optical switching and contrast enhancement in intense laser systems by cascaded optical parametric amplification

Optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) can be used to improve the prepulse contrast in chirped-pulse amplification systems by amplifying the main pulse with a total saturated OPCPA gain, while not affecting the preceding prepulses of the seed oscillator mode-locked pulse train. We show that a simple modification of a multistage OPCPA system into a cascaded optical parametric amplifier (COPA) results in an optical switch and extreme contrast enhancement that can completely eliminate the preceding and trailing oscillator pulses. Instrument-limited measurement of a prepulse contrast ratio of 1.4 x 10(11) is demonstrated from COPA at a 30 mJ level.     

Optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification source suitable for seeding high-energy systems

A short-pulse source based on optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) technology has been developed with properties that make it a suitable seed for a high-energy OPCPA system. This source generated a diffraction-limited pulse at 910 nm with a full bandwidth of > 165 nm and a spectrum having a transform-limited pulse duration of less than 15 fs. The technique has potential for generating bandwidths > 200 nm and pulse durations < 10 fs.     

High-peak power multi-wavelength picosecond pulses generated from a BaWO4 Raman-seeded optical parametric amplifier

We report the generation of high-peak power multi-wavelength picosecond laser pulses using optical parametric amplification (OPA) in BBO seeded with pulses generated in a 5-mm length BaWO₄ crystal by stimulated Raman scattering of 18-ps laser pulses at 532 nm. The maximum output energy of the amplified first-Stokes component at 559.7 nm was about 1.76 mJ. The corresponding maximum peak power, pulse duration and spectral line width were measured to be 117.3 MW, 15 ps and 18.0 cm⁻¹, respectively. The multi-wavelength picosecond laser pulses were in the visible and near infrared ranges. Using this Raman-seeded OPA technique, the beam quality of the stimulated Raman scattering pulses can be improved.     

Phase matched scanning optical parametric chirped pulse amplification based on pump beam deflection

Combined with the optical beam deflection, a novel approach of phase matched broadband scanning optical parametric chirped pulse amplification(OPCPA) was proposed. For this scheme, there was no superfluous operations to the chirped signal pulse which propagated in a changeless direction straightforward, but the pump beam were deflected in space with time by passing through a KTN crystal, which was applied with varied driving voltage. The theories of phase matching of each chirped signal frequency based on pump beam deflection was analyzed detailedly. And the type-I amplification of chirped signal with 800 nm central wavelength and 20 nm bandwidth pumped by 532 nm in BBO crystal was simulated as a case in point. The simulation results showed that the spectral distribution of chirped signal pulse was almost the same as the initial form, i.e., there was nearly no narrowing on the amplified spectrum by using of the scanning OPCPA based on pump beam deflection. In addition, the simulations demonstrated that it was worth minimizing the voltage deviation applied to KTN crystal as much as possible for the sake of better waveform, larger bandwidth and higher conversion efficiency of amplified signal pulse in the proposed scanning OPCPA.     

Optical parametric chirped-pulse-amplification contrast enhancement by regenerative pump spectral filtering

We demonstrate an approach to fundamentally improve the contrast of optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifiers (OPCPA). The instantaneous parametric gain couples the temporal variations of the pump-pulse intensity to spectral variations of the intensity of the stretched signal pulse being amplified, which significantly degrade the temporal contrast of the amplified pulse after recompression. Simple and efficient pump-intensity noise reduction in an OPCPA system using a volume Bragg grating in a regenerative amplifier demonstrates contrast improvements up to 30 dB.