Abstract
Long-wave infrared (LWIR) picosecond pulses with multi-terawatt peak power have recently become available for advanced high-energy physics and material research. Multi-joule pulse energy is achieved in an LWIR laser system via amplification of a microjoule seed pulse with high-pressure, mixed-isotope CO2 amplifiers. A chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) scheme is employed in such a laser to reduce the nonlinear interaction between the optical field and the transmissive elements of the system. Presently, a research and development effort is underway towards an even higher LWIR peak power that is required, for instance, for promising particle acceleration schemes. The required boost of the peak power can be achieved by reducing the pulse duration to fractions of a picosecond. For this purpose, the possibility of reducing the gain narrowing in the laser amplifiers and post-compression techniques are being studied. Another direction in research is aimed at the increased throughput (i.e., repetition rate), efficiency, and reliability of LWIR laser systems. The transition from a traditional electric-discharge pumping to an optical pumping scheme for CO2 amplifiers is expected to improve the robustness of high-peak-power LWIR lasers, making them suitable for broad implementation in scientific laboratory, industrial, and clinical environments.
Highlights
The CO2 laser was invented in 1964, at the very beginning of the laser era [1] and almost immediately became one of the most popular lasers for science and industry
Considering that modern solid-state lasers are usually more compact and easier to maintain than the electric-discharge gas lasers, the niche for the CO2 lasers should be expected to continue to shrink in the coming years
We describe the timeline of the research and development efforts that allowed a recent implementation of an ultra-short-pulse, high-peak-power Long-wave infrared (LWIR) laser based on the general scheme of Figure 1
Summary
The CO2 laser was invented in 1964, at the very beginning of the laser era [1] and almost immediately became one of the most popular lasers for science and industry. The development of short-pulse high-power CO2 lasers was, continued by several research groups, both theoretically and experimentally; two systems eventually achieved multi-terawatt peak power in picosecond LWIR pulses (three orders of magnitude shorter pulse duration compared to the Antares CO2 laser). Both these lasers were built in the United States with the main purpose of studying the potential of different schemes of laser particle acceleration driven by LWIR laser pulses. Coherent beam combining of the outputs of several amplifiers can be considered a relatively straightforward brute-force solution
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