Abstract

There are three primary requirements for amplifying short laser pulses to high peak power. First, the bandwidth of the amplifying medium must be large enough to accomodate the spectrum of the short pulse. Second, to extract a large amount of energy from relatively small-scale systems, the amplifier should exhibit a large saturation fluence, F_sat=hν/σ_e. Third, the intensity throughout the amplifier chain must be low enough to prevent significant pulse distortion and possible filamentation from nonlinear effects in the amplifier medium. This last requirement is quantified by calculating the total amount of nonlinear phase retardation experienced by the beam.¹

© 1989 Optical Society of America