High Average Power Near‐Infrared Few‐Cycle Lasers

We present the design and experiment of a broadband optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA) which provides high conversion efficiency and good beam quality at 808 nm wavelength. Using a three-dimensional spatial and temporal numerical model, several design considerations necessary to achieve high conversion efficiency, good beam quality and good output stability are discussed. To improve the conversion efficiency and broaden the amplified signal bandwidth simultaneously, the nonlinear crystal length and OPCPA parameters are analyzed and optimized with the concept of dissipating amplified idler between optical parametric amplification (OPA) of two crystals configuration. In the experiment, an amplifier consisting of two OPCPA stages of ‘L’ type configuration was demonstrated by using the optimized parameters. An amplified signal energy of 160 mJ was achieved with a total pump-to-signal efficiency of 35% (43% efficiency for the OPCPA stage 2). The output bandwidth of signal pulse reached 80 nm and the signal pulse was compressed to 24 fs. The energy stability reached 1.67% RMS at 3% pump energy variation. The optimized OPCPA amplifier operates at a repetition rate of 1 Hz and is used as a front-end injection for the main amplifier of SG-II 5PW laser facility.

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“…In the simulation, the intensities of the signal and pump are assumed to take the following Equations (2) and 3,…”

Section: Numerical Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design and experimental demonstration of a high conversion efficiency OPCPA pre-amplifier for petawatt laser facility

Liang

Xie

Kang

et al. 2018

High Pow Laser Sci Eng

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“…in nonlinear bio-photonic imaging, ultrafast spectroscopy, coherent X-ray generation, attoscience, and low-noise ultrafast fiber laser development, with spectral coverage extending from UV to mid-IR wavelengths. [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Noise amplification in all-normal dispersion fiber supercontinuum generation and its impact on ultrafast photonics applications

Sierro¹,

Heidt²

2020

OSA Continuum

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Highly coherent and low-noise supercontinuum (SC) sources based on nonlinear spectral broadening of femtosecond pulses in all-normal dispersion (ANDi) fibers are attractive for many applications in ultrafast photonics. By simulating a real nonlinear pulse compression experiment, we numerically investigate the impact of shot noise and technical pump laser fluctuations on the quality and stability of single-cycle pulse generation and other multi-shot experiments based on the manipulation of the SC spectral phase. We find that for pump pulse durations of less than 600 fs, input relative intensity noise <1%, and correctly chosen fiber lengths, the initial fluctuations of the pump laser are at most amplified by a factor of three. We also show that the usual strong correlation between SC coherence and quality of the compressed pulses collapses in the presence of technical noise, and that in this situation the coherence is not a useful figure of merit to quantify pulse quality, noise amplification, or decoherence due to incoherent nonlinear dynamics. Our results highlight the very limited impact of technical pump laser noise on ANDi SC generation and are of practical relevance for many ultrafast photonics applications that require high-quality, low-noise SC sources.

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“…Great progress has been made over the last 20 years in the development of techniques such as FROG [1], SPIDER [2], MIIPS [3], and more recently, dispersion-scan (d-scan) [4], to fully characterize femtosecond laser pulses, that is, to measure the amplitude and phase of the optical field. This capability has been vital for the development of few-cycle lasers [5][6][7] whose pulses contain just a small number of optical cycles or even a single cycle [8]. Knowledge of the pulse phase allows for the dispersion to be precisely controlled to achieve the shortest pulses possible-often very close to the transform limit.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In situ temporal measurement of ultrashort laser pulses at full power during high-intensity laser–matter interactions

Crespo

Witting

Canhota

et al. 2020

Optica

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In laser-matter interaction experiments, it is of paramount importance to characterize the laser pulse on target (in situ) and at full power. This allows pulse optimization and meaningful comparison with theory, and it can shed fundamental new light on pulse distortions occurring in or on the target. Here we introduce and demonstrate a new technique based on dispersion-scan using the concurrent third harmonic emission from the target that permits the full (amplitude and phase), in situ, in-parallel characterization of ultrashort laser pulses in a gas or solid target over a very wide intensity range encompassing the 10 13-10 15 Wcm −2 regime of high harmonic generation and other important strong-field phenomena, with possible extension to relativistic intensities presently inaccessible to other diagnostics. Published by The Optical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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High Average Power Near‐Infrared Few‐Cycle Lasers

Cited by 43 publications

References 185 publications

Design and experimental demonstration of a high conversion efficiency OPCPA pre-amplifier for petawatt laser facility

Design and experimental demonstration of a high conversion efficiency OPCPA pre-amplifier for petawatt laser facility

Noise amplification in all-normal dispersion fiber supercontinuum generation and its impact on ultrafast photonics applications

In situ temporal measurement of ultrashort laser pulses at full power during high-intensity laser–matter interactions

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