Chirped-pulse amplification in the ultraviolet region is demonstrated by use of a broadband Ce(3+): LiCaAlF(6) laser medium. A modified bow-tie-style four-pass amplifier pumped by 100-mJ, 266-nm pulses from a Q -switched Nd:YAG laser has a gain factor of 370 and delivers 6-mJ, 290-nm pulses. After dispersion compensation, the output pulses can be compressed to 115 fs.
Lacunary polyoxometalates, large inorganic, structure-design-flexible, nanocluster crystals are found to have higher optical nonlinearity than KH2PO4 by the powder second-harmonic-generation method. Moreover, the capability of generating ultraviolet radiation down to around 300 nm is found. The basic criteria to design the high nonlinearity are also discovered by the reduction of the molecular symmetry.
We demonstrate that a coaxially pumped, large-aperture ultraviolet power-amplifier module with solid-state tunable laser medium Ce(3+):LiCaAlF6 has 98-mJ, 290-nm, and 3-ns output pulses with a sufficient extraction efficiency of 25%. The detailed information of design parameters, including the gain-coefficient dependence on pump condition, is successfully accumulated for further energy scaling for a terawatt-class ultraviolet chirped pulse amplification laser system or a high-pulse-energy laser system.
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