Optimization of pump lasers for high-energy OPCPA system

Abstract

The L1 Allegra is an OPCPA-based, high average power, high repetition rate laser system pumped by thin-disc based regenerative amplifiers currently under development at the ELI-Beamlines center in Czech Republic. The repetition rate is 1 kHz, pulse duration is below 15 fs and the wavelength centered around 820 nm with a maximum design pulse energy of 100 mJ. To avoid problems with self-focusing, a large portion of the system was placed inside vacuum, including the compressors and second-harmonic crystals for the last three 1030 nm pump lasers, the final three OPA stages, and the chirped mirror compressor. In order to reach the designed output energy of the whole system, the pump lasers need to be efficient, stable, and providing enough pump power for each of the amplification stages. Pulse compression of the final three pump lasers as well as efficient conversion to the second harmonic frequency in vacuum has posed several challenges and we report on their solutions and results. The vacuum environment causes difficulties for two main reasons. The first one is laser-induced-contamination (LIC) degrading the optical surfaces of dielectric gratings, mirrors and crystals, due to the presence of degassing components contaminating the vacuum chambers. The second reason is second-harmonic generation crystal mounts heating up, requiring regular phase matching corrections by rotation of the crystal mounts. The LIC problem was solved by regular cleaning of the chambers by means of an RF-plasma source, and the heating problem was solved by implementing active temperature stabilization by means of installing thermo-electric coolers on the crystal holders. To increase the efficiency of the second-harmonic generation, beam profiles of the pump lasers had to be improved. The original Faraday rotators, present in the linearly-designed regenerative amplifiers, caused non-Gaussian beam profiles due to the self focusing inside the rotators. By using KTF crystals inside a new type of rotators, the spatial profile of the pump lasers is more Gaussian, allowing the efficiency of the SHG to be higher, almost by 25%. All the solved problems recently allowed the system to reach a short pulse output energy of 56 mJ, paving a way to reach 100 mJ successfuly in the future.