提高飞秒超强激光脉冲对比度的新方法

文章在简要描述飞秒超强激光脉冲对比度有关概念及其测量方法的基础上,介绍了空间滤波和时间滤波,以及提高注入脉冲种子对比度和强度的技术,环形腔放大技术,光参量啁啾脉冲放大技术（OPCPA）,双啁啾脉冲放大技术（DCPA）,采用高阶非线性晶体滤波等几种提高对比度的新方法和新技术.采用这些方法和技术,在最近一两年的时间里,人们成功地将多年来徘徊在106量级的飞秒超强激光脉冲对比度,提高到了1011的新水平,从而为强场物理的研究提供了更为理想的光源.     

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.     

多波段紫外太瓦级CPA系统

基于啁啾脉冲放大(CPA)技术和频率变换技术,构建了一个多波长紫外太瓦量级CPA系统.该系统实现了5种频率的精确同步,可同时输出1 Hz,5 Hz和10 Hz的高能量多波段紫外脉冲.时间抖动小于3 ns的时间同步系统和能量不稳定性小于0.5%rms的kHz预放大系统保证了CPA系统输出的能量不稳定性小于2%rms.最后,通过共线相位匹配方案,得到了64 mJ/400 nm,16 mJ/267 nm和5 mJ/205 nm紫外脉冲输出,对应峰值功率达到太瓦量级. 关键词： 啁啾脉冲放大 光学频率变换 紫外脉冲     

飞秒超强激光多通预放大过程中的脉冲信噪比研究

从啁啾脉冲放大的基本理论出发,详细计算了啁啾脉冲在多通预放大中各个时间点的增益情况,并设计了一个十通预放大器进行了实验研究. 结果显示,在抽运通量为1.6 J/cm²的非饱和放大情况下,种子脉冲经过十通预放大之后信噪比由10^-5提高到10^-7. 这表明在非饱和抽运通量下,多通预放大器可以有效提高激光脉冲的信噪比. 关键词： 多通预放大 信噪比 飞秒钛宝石激光器     

Temporal contrast control at the PHELIX petawatt laser facility by means of tunable sub-picosecond optical parametric amplification

We report on the development of a preamplifier module for temporal contrast enhancement and control at petawatt-class lasers. The module is based on an ultrafast optical parametric amplifier (uOPA), which produces temporally clean pulses at the 60 μJ level for seeding a chirped pulse amplification (CPA) system, namely the petawatt facility PHELIX. The amplifier module allows for gain reduction in the following amplifiers, resulting in an attenuation of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) by more than 4 orders of magnitude. Since the ASE of a CPA system linearly depends on the seeding energy, we were able to demonstrate a continuous variation of the temporal contrast by tuning the gain of the uOPA.     

14-fs high temporal quality injector for ultra-high intensity laser

We present a chirped pulse amplification (CPA) Ti:Sa laser generating sub-15 fs pulses with expected high temporal quality. Gain-narrowing in the pre-amplifier is balanced by a variable spectral reflectivity mirror and by a fine adaptation of the saturation conditions. A crossed polarized wave generation (XPW) filter is introduced to enhance the contrast, reduce the pulse duration and improve the spectral quality. The pulses are generated at 10 Hz repetition rate, with pulse energy of 110 μJ and very clean Gaussian spectrum. The temporal contrast is evaluated by a measurement before the XPW filter and calculations of the enhancement by the filter. The potential temporal incoherent contrast is 10¹² and the coherent contrast 10¹⁰. The performance of the system makes it suitable as an injector for petawatt lasers operating in the double-CPA scheme.     

Double chirped-pulse-amplification laser: a way to clean pulses temporally

We demonstrate a double chirped-pulse-amplification (CPA) Ti: sapphire laser system that includes two CPA stages with intermediate nonlinear temporal pulse filtering. The method makes it possible to reduce substantially the background of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE), including prepulses and postpulses. An ASE temporal contrast of 10(10) was demonstrated at 20 mJ of output energy and 50-fs pulse duration. The demonstrated scheme is applicable to petawatt power-level laser systems.     

提高飞秒超强激光脉冲对比度的新方法

文章在简要描述飞秒超强激光脉冲对比度有关概念及其测量方法的基础上,介绍了空间滤波和时间滤波,以及提高注入脉冲种子对比度和强度的技术,环形腔放大技术,光参量啁啾脉冲放大技术（OPCPA）,双啁啾脉冲放大技术（DCPA）,采用高阶非线性晶体滤波等几种提高对比度的新方法和新技术.采用这些方法和技术,在最近一两年的时间里,人们成功地将多年来徘徊在106量级的飞秒超强激光脉冲对比度,提高到了1011的新水平,从而为强场物理的研究提供了更为理想的光源.     

Suppression of gain narrowing in multi-TW lasers with negatively and positively chirped pulse amplification

A laser scheme implementing a combination of negatively and positively chirped pulse amplification (NPCPA) is demonstrated. This method of amplification suppresses spectral narrowing typically appearing in chirped pulse amplification (CPA) lasers thus supporting pulse spectrum much broader than a conventional CPA. With a NPCPA Ti:Sapphire laser we have achieved laser pulses of 50 nm spectral width and 150 mJ energy without any additional spectral correction. The scheme appears as an easy and reliable solution to preserve spectral bandwidth in Ti:Sapphire lasers, especially at high power levels up to the Petawatt regime. PACS 42.60 By, Lh; 42.65 Re     

Temporal contrast improvement in chirped pulse amplification systems by a four-grating compressor and by spectral modifications

The quest for higher peak focused intensities and better temporal contrast drives one to improve the design of all possible stages of the chirped pulse amplification (CPA) system. In this paper, we have analyzed the role of dispersion and spectral profile on the temporal shape and contrast ratio of the output pulse of a CPA system. The simulations indicate that an initial sech² or a Gaussian pulse in the CPA system is best for a good contrast ratio. Incorporating a four-grating based pulse compressor in the CPA system improves the contrast as well as provides the flexibility to compensate the dispersion upto the fourth order. The simulations also detail the effect of spectral profile tailoring on the contrast ratio and peak power.     

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.     

High-contrast optical-parametric amplifier as a front end of high-power laser systems

A high-contrast preamplifier based on optical-parametric amplification with a short pump pulse is demonstrated. A gain larger than 10(5) and measurement-limited contrast higher than 10(11) are obtained over a large temporal range extending within less than 10 ps of the peak of the pulse, because of the high instantaneous parametric gain provided by a short pump pulse in a nonlinear crystal. The energy gain and high contrast of this preamplifier make it a good seed source for high-power laser systems.     

Prepulse suppression in a multi-10-TW diode-pumped Yb:glass laser

We describe a novel method to improve the temporal intensity contrast (TIC) between the main pulse and prepulses in a high-power chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) laser system. Pre- and post-pulses originating from the limited extinction ratio of the polarization gating equipment are suppressed by carefully adjusting the round-trip times of the regenerative amplifiers (RAs) with respect to the oscillator. As a result, leaking pulses from earlier or later round-trips in the RAs are hidden below the temporal shape of the main pulse. The synchronization can easily be controlled by a contrast measurement on a picosecond time scale using a third-order cross-correlator that enables a sub-mm precise adjustment of the cavity lengths. Finally, a method based on spectral interference is introduced that can be used for a fine-adjustment of the cavity lengths for the daily operation, making this new method easy to implement into existing laser systems.     

Multi-millijoule, nonlinear preamplifier for high intensity femtosecond Yb:YAG chirped-pulse amplification lasers at 1030 nm

We report the highest energy broadband laser pulses at a center wavelength of 1030 nm based on optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA). We have demonstrated amplification of 1030 nm femtosecond laser pulses from a broadband Yb oscillator to over 6.5 mJ with a total gain of greater than 10⁷ achieved in a single pass through only 56 mm of gain material at a 10 Hz repetition rate. The amplified spectral bandwidth of 10.8 nm affords recompression to a 230 fs pulse duration following amplification. As an alternative to the regenerative amplifier (RA) this system is one of the more promising candidates for realizing compact, high intensity, direct diode-pumped, high repetition rate femtosecond Yb:YAG chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) in laser systems.     

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.     

Mutual compensation of higher-order dispersion in chirped pulse amplification system with regenerative amplifier

In this paper, based on ray tracing, the approach of mutual compensation that introduced properly the negative third-order dispersion to balance the higher-order dispersion in the chirped pulse amplification (CPA) system with regenerative amplifier is presented. A shorter pulse with near-transform-limitation can be generated by this method than by the conventional approach that zeros the second- and the third-order dispersion successively in the CPA system.     

Ultraintense lasers: relativistic nonlinear optics and applications

Traditional optics and nonlinear optics are related to laser–matter interaction with eV characteristic energy. Recent progresses in ultrahigh intensity makes it possible to drive electrons with relativistic energy opening up the field of relativistic nonlinear optics. In the last decade, lasers have undergone orders-of-magnitude jumps in peak power, with the invention of the technique of chirped pulse amplification (CPA) and the refinements of femtosecond techniques. Modern CPA lasers can produce intensities greater than 10²¹ W/cm², one million times greater than previously possible. These ultraintense lasers give researchers a tool to produce unprecedented pressures (terabars), magnetic fields (gigagauss), temperatures (10¹⁰ K), and accelerations (10²⁵ g) with applications in fusion energy, nuclear physics (fast ignition), high-energy physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. They promote the optics field from the eV to the GeV.     

Dual sub-picosecond and sub-nanosecond laser system

A high power laser system delivering a 20-TW, 0.5-0.8 ps ultra-short laser pulse and a 20-J, 500-ps long pulse simultaneously in one shot is completed. This two-beam laser operates at the wavelength of 1053 nm and uses Nd doped glass as the gain media of the main amplification chain. The chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) technology is used to compress the stretched laser pulse. After compression, the ultra-short laser pulse is measured: energy above 16.0 J, S/N contrast ratio-10~5 : 1, filling factor->52.7%. Another long pulse beam is a non-compressed chirped laser pulse, which is measured: energy-20 J, pulse duration 500 ps. The two beams are directed onto the target surface at an angle of 15°.     

Signal-to-noise ratio of ultrashort pulses enhanced by a fiber Sagnac loop

A method to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio of ultrashort pulses is presented with picosecond pulses as an example. Numerical simulation and analysis show that the signal-to-noise ratio can be improved by four orders of magnitude using a fiber Sagnac loop with two different fibers. It is also found that there is an optimal length of the fiber for improving the signal-to-noise ratio. This is a useful method for improving the signal-to-noise ratio of the seed light in the chirped pulse amplification (CPA) or optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) systems.     

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.