Numerical analysis of spatial distortions in a single-grating chirped pulse amplification system

Abstract

A numerical study of spatial distortions of a laser beam after propagation through an optical single-grating chirp pulse amplification (CPA) system was developed. This study is based on numerical simulation using the ray-tracing model from Rayica module of MATHEMATICA and it relates the behavior of the aberrated beam in terms of spatial distortions (eg. spatial chirp and pulse front tilt) in case of grating incident angle variation. The results are relevant for different applications which use CPA systems with needs of high quality laser beam profile.