Abstract
We report on the energetic and beam quality performance of the second to the last main amplifier section HEPA I of the PEnELOPE laser project. A polarization coupled double-12-pass scheme to verify the full amplification capacity of the last two amplifiers HEPA I and II was used. The small signal gain for a narrow-band continuous wave laser was 900 and 527 for a broadband nanosecond pulse, demonstrating 12.6 J of output pulse energy. Those pulses, being spectrally wide enough to support equivalent 150 fs long ultrashort pulses, are shown with an excellent spatial beam quality. A first active correction of the wavefront using a deformable mirror resulted in a Strehl ratio of 76% in the single-12-pass configuration for HEPA I.
Highlights
The fast evolution of high power laser systems in the peak power range of 100 terawatt (TW) to petawatt (PW)[1] has enabled and stimulated the field of relativistic plasma physics at peak intensities exceeding 1019 W/cm2 and laser plasma based advanced particle accelerator concepts[2, 3]
We report on the energetic and beam quality performance of the second to the last main amplifier section HEPA I of the PENELOPE laser project
The first was the probing of the small signal gain (SSG) using a continuous wave laser, where the whole setup was left under ambient condition
Summary
The fast evolution of high power laser systems in the peak power range of 100 terawatt (TW) to petawatt (PW)[1] has enabled and stimulated the field of relativistic plasma physics at peak intensities exceeding 1019 W/cm and laser plasma based advanced particle accelerator concepts[2, 3]. Lasers relying on titanium doped sapphire (Ti3+:Al2O3/TiSa) currently demonstrate the highest peak power for pulses in the sub-50 fs range[5, 8,9,10,11]. All those systems rely on flash lamps to some extent and are limited in pulse repetition rate due to thermal load. In order to achieve these parameters, challenges lie mainly in the pulse amplification to the desired energy level, as well as the successful stretching and compression of those ultrashort laser pulses
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