Optical Parametric Chirped-pulse Amplification System Research Articles

Improvement of contrast ratio in saturated OPCPA system by using pump pulse shaping and time delay control

We theoretically investigated the temporal profile of a background pedestal in a single-stage optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) system, and showed that the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) prepulse in the saturation regime degrades the contrast ratio. To improve the contrast ratio in a saturated OPCPA system, a method using pump pulse shaping and the time delay control between pump and seed pulses was utilized. Through numerical simulations, the effect of the rising time and the time delay of a pump pulse on the background pedestal was subsequently investigated in terms of the contrast ratio. From the simulation results, it was determined that an optimal rising time and the time delay of the pump pulse are critical for obtaining a high-contrast broadband laser pulse from a saturated OPCPA system.

Active stabilization for optically synchronized optical parametric chirped pulse amplification

The development of new high power laser sources tends toward optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) in recent years. One of the difficulties in OPCPA is the the temporal overlap between pump and seed pulses. In this work we characterize our timing jitter on a single-shot basis using spectrally resolved cross-correlation in combination with a position sensitive detector. A commercial beam stabilization is adapted to actively enhance temporal overlap. This delay-stabilizer reduces the RMS jitter from σ = 127 fs down to σ = 24 fs. The enhanced temporal overlap is demonstrated in our frontend and we propose the scheme to be applicable in many optically synchronized high-repetition-rate OPCPA systems.

Ultrafast Optical Parametric Chirped-Pulse Amplification

In recent years, optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) has emerged as a powerful tool for the generation of ultrashort pulses with extreme peak intensity. It has enabled the generation of phase-controlled few-cycle pulses in widely different parts of the spectrum. For the near-infrared spectral range, OPCPA is becoming an interesting alternative to conventional Ti:Sapphire-based laser technology for various applications. In this paper, we discuss the physics behind OPCPA, as well as the practical design considerations for the development of high-intensity, phase-stable few-cycle OPCPA systems. Also, we review the experimental achievements in ultrafast OPCPA systems to date.

Broadening and Amplification of an Infrared Femtosecond Pulse for Optical Parametric Chirped-Pulse Amplification

A high-average-power diode-pumped narrowband regenerative chirped pulse amplifier is developed using the thin-rod Nd:YAG laser architecture for optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA). The effect of the etalons on the amplified pulse in the regenerative cavity is studied experimentally and theoretically. By inserting glass etalons of thickness 1 mm and 5 mm into the regenerative cavity, the pre-stretching pulse from an Öffner stretcher is further broadened to above 200ps, which matches the amplification windows of the signal pulses in OPCPA and is suitable for use as a pump source in the OPCPA system. The bandwidth of the amplified pulse is 1.5 nm, and an output energy of 2mJ is achieved at a repetition rate of 10Hz.

On the efficiency of a multiterawatt optical parametric amplifier: numerical model and optimization

Numerical simulations and analysis of a very efficient and stable noncollinear optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) femtosecond system are presented. The system is optimized for a long (nanosecond), rectangular temporal profile and a flat-top spatial profile of the pump laser pulse. We show that a two-stage system consisting of a multipass preamplifier and a time-sheared power amplifier operating around 850 nm and pumped by a 532 nm pulse can achieve quantum efficiencies as high as 0.9. We also discuss practical schemes of the few-cycle multiterawatt OPCPA systems employing different nonlinear crystals. The results of the Monte Carlo simulations are used to balance the stability and efficiency of the parametric amplifier system.

Demonstration of a cavity-enhanced optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system

The use of a low finesse enhancement cavity resonant with a low average power (<1 W) and a high repetition rate (78 MHz) pump source is shown to achieve 55% conversion efficiency into signal and idler from the coupled pump in an optical parametric process, whereas an equivalent amount of pump power in a single-pass configuration leads to negligible conversion. Careful comparison of the intracavity conversion process to the single-pass case is performed to assess the underlying impedance matching that yields the high conversion results.

High-repetition-rate sub-5-fs pulses with 12 GW peak power from fiber-amplifier-pumped optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification

An optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system delivering pulses with more than 12 GW peak power is presented. Compression to sub-5 fs, 87 μJ and 5.4 fs, 100 μJ is realized at the 30 kHz repetition rate. A high-energy fiber chirped-pulse amplification system operating at 1 mJ pulse energy and nearly transform-limited pulses is used to achieve ultrabroadband amplification in two 2mm beta-barium borate crystals. Precise pulse shaping is used to compress the pulses to a few percentages of their transform limit. Assuming diffraction limited focusing (d<2 μm), peak intensities as high as 10(18) W/cm(2) can be reached.

Long-term stable passive synchronization of 50 µJ femtosecond Yb-doped fiber chirped-pulse amplifier with a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser

We report long-term stable passive synchronization of a femtosecond Yb-doped fiber chirped-pulse amplifier (CPA) with a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser for pump-seed synchronization of an optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) system. The fiber CPA system delivers pulses with a wavelength of 1035 nm, energy of 50 µJ, and duration of 690 fs at a repetition rate of 0.4 MHz. The seed fiber oscillator is passively synchronized with a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser by injection of the Ti:sapphire laser pulses into the cavity of the fiber oscillator. The second harmonic (SH) output with a wavelength of 518 nm, energy of 18 µJ, and duration of 1.2 ps was prepared for the OPCPA pump. The measured timing jitter between the pump (fiber SH) and the seed (Ti:sapphire) was 42 ± 14 fs, while the jitter between two oscillator outputs was 1.4 ± 0.5 fs. The robust synchronization technique allows long-term stable operation over 8 h.

Pulse-contrast degradation due to pump phase-modulation in optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system

We theoretically study the pulse-contrast degradation of optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) system pumped by a temporally phase-modulated laser. We reveal two physical mechanisms that reduce the contrast in such a parametric process: the effect of phase transfer caused by group-velocity mismatch (GVM) and the effect of FM-to-AM conversion caused by group-velocity dispersion (GVD). Degradation of the contrast is quantified via numerical simulations. To reduce the effect of phase transfer, a pair of OPCPAs seeded by the signal and idler respectively, is studied for effectively improving the contrast in such a case with pump phase modulation. The results presented in this paper are of particular importance for extremely intense laser applications requiring high contrast.

High energy and long pulse generation with high-birefringence photonic crystal fibre and laser-diode pumped regenerative amplifier

We report on the generation of a high energy and long pulse for pumping optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) by a high-birefringence photonic crystal fibre (HB-PCF) and a laser-diode-pumped regenerative chirped pulse amplifier. Using the femtosecond pump pulse centred at 815 nm, a 1064 nm soliton pulse is produced in the HB-PCF. After injecting it into an Nd:YAG regenerative amplifier with the glass etalons, a narrow-band amplified pulse with an energy of ∼4 mJ and a duration of 235 ps is achieved at a repetition rate of 10 Hz, which is suitable for being used as a pump source in the 800 nm OPCPA system.

Non-collinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier for few-cycle pulses

Modified parametric coupled equations for three-wave interaction in non-collinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) are presented, in which the effects from the non-collinear configuration have been taken into account. By utilizing this new model, a two-stage OPCPA system based on a BBO crystal is numerically calculated with a split-step Fourier transform algorithm. Tracing the dynamics of the signal wave in the crystal reveals that in the first stage spectral gain narrowing occurs due to the weak input signal intensity and the non-uniform temporal distribution of the pump light. However, in the saturation regime the spectrum of the signal will be broadened as a consequence of back conversion. The simulation shows that it is crucial to correctly control the experimental parameters to balance both processes. For maximizing the energy-bandwidth product (EBP), an optimized configuration is sought by examining several parameters such as pump intensity, seed energy and crystal length. With a pump intensity of 7.75 GW/cm2 and a crystal length between 3.75 and 4.25 mm pulses with a sub-10 fs duration can be amplified with a total gain of up to 1.7×106.

Self-compression of millijoule 15 μm pulses

We demonstrate a four-stage optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system that delivers carrier-envelope phase-stable approximately 1.5 microm pulses with energies up to 12.5 mJ before recompression. The system is based on a fusion of femtosecond diode-pumped solid-state Yb technology and a picosecond 100 mJ Nd:YAG pump laser. Pulses with 62 nm bandwidth are recompressed to a 74.4 fs duration close to the transform limit. To show the way toward a terawatt-peak-power single-cycle IR source, we demonstrate self-compression of 2.2 mJ pulses down to 19.8 fs duration in a single filament in argon with a 1.5 mJ output energy and 66% energy throughput.

Generation of sub-three-cycle, 16 TW light pulses by using noncollinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification

We present a two-stage noncollinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system that generates 7.9 fs pulses containing 130 mJ of energy at an 805 nm central wavelength and 10 Hz repetition rate. These 16 TW light pulses are compressed to within 5% of their Fourier limit and are carefully characterized by the use of home-built pulse diagnostics. The contrast ratio before the main pulse has been measured as 10(-4), 10(-8), and 10(-11) at t=-3.3 ps, t=-5 ps, and t=-30 ps, respectively. This source allows for experiments in a regime of relativistic light-matter interactions and attosecond science.

Frontend light source for short-pulse pumped OPCPA system

We present the development of a light source for generating optically synchronized seed pulses both for the parametric amplifier chain and the pump-laser chain of the Petawatt Field Synthesizer (PFS), which is currently under construction at MPQ. The PFS system aims at delivering waveform-controlled few-cycle laser pulses with PW-scale peak power using optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA). Methods of generating the broadband near-infrared (NIR) seed pulses for the OPCPA chain by spectral broadening using few-cycle pulses are presented. We also demonstrate the generation of a supercontinuum spanning up to three octaves (270–1500 nm) using cascaded hollow-core fibers which supports sub-cycle pulse duration.

Optimization of Pulse Temporal Contrast in Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification

In optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA), the degradation of temporal contrast of the compressed signal pulse mainly results from spectral clipping in the grating stretcher with finite size of the optics, parametric fluorescence (PF) and the spectral variations transferred from temporal fluctuation of the pump pulse. The temporal contrast of the recompressed amplified pulse in the OPCPA system is studied numerically and a number of solutions are considered and optimized to achieve the highest temporal contrast.

Demonstration of highly efficient broadband amplification in a optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier system

We have demonstrated highly efficient broadband amplification by an optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier (OPCPA) system that uses high energy seed pulses. The OPCPA consists of three type I B-barium borate (BBO) crystals pumped by a Q-switched Nd:YAG laser. We successfully amplified the microjoule level seed pulses to 78 mJ with a pump-to-signal optical conversion efficiency of 26% at a 10 Hz repetition rate. To our knowledge these results represent the most optically efficient OPCPA to date pumped by a typical Q-switched laser.

Generation of carrier-envelope-phase-stable 2-cycle 740-μJ pulses at 21-μm carrier wavelength

We produce carrier-envelope-phase-stable 15.7-fs (2-cycle) 740-microJ pulses at the 2.1-microm carrier wavelength, from a three-stage optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier system, pumped by an optically synchronized 49-ps 11-mJ Nd:YLF laser. A novel seed pulse spectral shaping method is used to ascertain the true amplified seed energy and the parametric superfluorescence levels.

Analysis of pump-induced temporal contrast degradation in optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification

The pump-induced degradation of the temporal contrast of laser pulses amplified by optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) is studied analytically. In OPCPA systems, the temporal fluctuations of the pump pulse are coupled to the spectrum of the chirped signal by the instantaneous parametric gain and lead to a reduction in the temporal contrast of the recompressed amplified signal. The intensity and shape of the induced temporal pedestal depend on the pump fluctuations and the parametric amplifier operating regime. General equations describing the contrast degradation are derived and applied to the case of sinusoidal pump-intensity modulation and pump amplified spontaneous emission. The reduction of the contrast in the amplified pulse is quantified analytically and via simulations for an OPCPA system.

15 mJ, 64 fs parametric chirped-pulse amplification system at 1 kHz

We demonstrate an optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) system with the pulse energy of 1.5 mJ at a 1 kHz repetition rate. The newly developed 100 ps Ti:sapphire pump laser system, which was optically synchronized with OPCPA seed pulses, delivered 10 mJ, 400 nm pump pulses. After three-stage parametric amplification, recompression of the amplifier output from 45 ps to 6.4 fs was performed. The pulse width of 6.4 fs is, to our knowledge, the shortest ever obtained by OPCPA, and the average power of 1.5 W (1.5 mJ, 1 kHz) is believed to be the highest among few-cycle OPCPA systems.

High-energy, high-contrast, multiterawatt laser pulses by optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification

We describe a compact, reliable, high-power, and high-contrast noncollinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier system. With a broadband Ti:sapphire oscillator and grating-based stretching and compression, the chirped pulses are amplified from 0.1 nJ to 122 mJ in type I beta-barium borate optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifiers with a total gain of over 10(9) at 10 Hz repetition rate. Pulse compression down to 19-fs duration achieved after amplification indicates a peak power of 3.2 TW at an average power of 0.62 W. The prepulse contrast is measured to be less than 10(-8) on picosecond time scales.