Generation of 160-ps terawatt-power CO_2 laser pulses

Abstract

We have developed a three-stage CO(2) master-oscillator-amplifier system that produces 1.1 TW of peak power. The system generates 170 J of energy in a diffraction-limited 160+/-10ps pulse on the 10P(20) line. We also report the realization of a two-wavelength terawatt-peak-power CO(2) laser that can be tuned to an arbitrary pair of lines. A two-stage semiconductor switching system driven by a picosecond-pulse Nd:YAG laser was used to slice a short, low-power 10.6-mum pulse for amplification. A simple plasma shutter helped to compensate for gain narrowing in a final three-pass amplifier and to shorten the pulse.

UCLA Neptune Facility for Advanced Accelerator Studies

“…At present the state-of-the-art two-wavelength, CO 2 laser system, based on multistage amplification of a 100 ps pulse, is built and fully characterized. The system is capable of producing 100-400 ps pulses with energy 100-200 J [5]. The CO 2 laser chain includes a two-wavelength hybrid TEA master oscillator, an UV-preionized, 8-atm regenerative amplifier, and a 2.5-atm electronbeam-controlled large-aperture amplifier.…”

“…The same Nd:YAG oscillator pulse is used, after amplification in a Nd:YAG regenerative amplifier (Slicer), for slicing a short seed pulse for 10 µm CO 2 amplifiers. To achieve this, the nanosecond CO 2 master-oscillator output is combined with the 100 ps, 1 µm pulse on the surface of a semiconductor material [5]. This semiconductor switching technique also provides the ability to synchronize the short 10-µm pulse and the electron bunch, since the same Nd:YAG oscillator pulse is used for their production.…”

“…The proposed 1 µm oscillator upgrade automatically makes available 14 ps pulses from the Slicer laser. This will allow switching and amplification of a 20 ps CO 2 laser pulse and potentially 3 ps pulses in a final amplifier to a ~TW and 1-3 TW level, respectively using the coherent amplification technique [5].…”

Temporal controlling of a bifurcated dual-band two-line TEA CO2 laser

“…Multiline pulsed CO 2 lasers have a key role in different applications such as multiphoton dissociation of molecules, short pulse amplification, differential absorption lidar, laser plasma production and plasma diagnostics (Hamza et al 1982;Feldman 1975;Sajad et al 2004;Nowak et al 2013;Nakamaya et al 2009;Tochitsky et al 1999). Several techniques for multiline operation of pulsed CO 2 lasers have been so far developed and reported (Biswas 1990; Gupta and Chatterjee 1990;Wang et al 2009;Churakov et al 1987;Ruschin et al 1985;Chongyi et al 1984) among which, the spatial separation of optical paths technique is the only one with non-overlapping paths for different lines in the active medium.…”

High Energy Gain of Trapped Electrons in a Tapered, Diffraction-Dominated Inverse-Free-Electron Laser

“…Final focus quadrupoles focused the e beam to the spot size of 120 m (rms) in the middle of the undulator. The 10:6 m CO 2 laser beam [13] was focused to a spot size (1=e 2 ) of 240 m using a 2.56 m focal length NaCl lens which also served as a vacuum window. The laser beam was made collinear to the e beam utilizing a plane copper mirror with a hole located 1.45 m upstream of the magnet entrance.…”