Abstract
A single-shot characterization of the temporal contrast of a petawatt laser pulse with a high dynamic-range, is important not only for improving conditions of the petawatt laser facility itself, but also for various high-intensity laser physics experiments, which is still a difficult problem. In this study, a new idea for improving the dynamic-range of a single-shot temporal contrast measurement using novel temporal contrast reduction techniques is proposed. The proof-of-principle experiments applying single stage of pulse stretching, anti-saturated absorption, or optical Kerr effect successfully reduce the temporal contrast by approximately one order of magnitude. Combining with the SRSI-ETE method, its dynamic-range characterization capability is improved by approximately one order of magnitude to approximately 109. It is expected that a higher dynamic-range temporal contrast can be characterized by using cascaded temporal contrast reduction processes. The proposed techniques can also be used in the delay-scanning temporal contrast measurement to improve its dynamic range.
Highlights
The development of chirped pulse amplification (CPA)[1] and optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA)[2] techniques has increased the peak laser power to petawatt (PW) level since the first demonstration of laser[3]
For a Gaussian laser pulse, the temporal intensity of a pulse is closely related to its full width at half maximum (FWHM) pulse duration, which can be and approximately described as I = E/τ, where E is the pulse energy and τ is the FWHM pulse duration
Single-shot characterization of the temporal contrast of a PW laser pulse with a high dynamic-range is important for understanding where the pre- or post-pulses and background noise are coming from in a PW laser facility, improving its temporal contrast
Summary
The development of chirped pulse amplification (CPA)[1] and optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA)[2] techniques has increased the peak laser power to petawatt (PW) level since the first demonstration of laser[3]. Because pre- or post-pulses are stronger by several orders of magnitude than background noise in general, the temporal contrast of these pulses can be measured using an existing method and instrument with a relatively low dynamic-range. High dynamic temporal contrast can be measured in two steps: 1) obtain the temporal contrast of background noise using a stretched pulse, and 2) achieve the precise structures of preor post-pulses using conventional methods with high temporal resolution but relatively low dynamic-range. Using this simple pulse stretching method, a commercial delay-scanning third-order cross-correlator can improve its capability in the dynamic-range by one or two orders of magnitude
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