Expand this Topic clickable element to expand a topic
Skip to content
Optica Publishing Group

Minimization of the impact of a broad bandwidth high-gain nonlinear preamplifier to the amplified spontaneous emission pedestal of the Vulcan petawatt laser facility

Not Accessible

Your library or personal account may give you access

Abstract

To generate petawatt pulses using the Vulcan Nd:glass laser requires a broad bandwidth high-gain preamplifier. The preamplifier used is an optical parametric amplifier that provides a total gain of 108 in three amplification stages. We report on a detailed investigation of the effect of the Vulcan optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) preamplifier on contrast caused by the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) pedestal that extends up to 2 ns before the arrival of the main pulse. The contrast after compression is improved to 4×108 of the intensity of the main pulse using near-field apertures between the stages of the OPCPA preamplifier. Further reduction of the level of the ASE pedestal can be achieved at the cost of a reduction in amplified bandwidth by solely phosphate glass amplification after initial preamplification rather than a mixed glass amplification scheme.

© 2007 Optical Society of America

Full Article  |  PDF Article
More Like This
Picosecond optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier as a preamplifier to generate high-energy seed pulses for contrast enhancement

Ian Musgrave, Waseem Shaikh, Marco Galimberti, Alexis Boyle, Cristina Hernandez-Gomez, Kate Lancaster, and Robert Heathcote
Appl. Opt. 49(33) 6558-6562 (2010)

High-spatiotemporal-quality petawatt-class laser system

Hiromitsu Kiriyama, Mori Michiaki, Yoshiki Nakai, Takuya Shimomura, Hajime Sasao, Momoko Tanaka, Yoshihiro Ochi, Manabu Tanoue, Hajime Okada, Shuji Kondo, Shuhei Kanazawa, Akito Sagisaka, Izuru Daito, Daisuke Wakai, Fumitaka Sasao, Masayuki Suzuki, Hideyuki Kotakai, Kiminori Kondo, Akira Sugiyama, Sergei Bulanov, Paul R. Bolton, Hiroyuki Daido, Shunichi Kawanishi, John L. Collier, Cristina Hernandez-Gomez, Chris J. Hooker, Klaus Ertel, Toyoaki Kimura, and Toshiki Tajima
Appl. Opt. 49(11) 2105-2115 (2010)

High-dynamic-range temporal measurements of short pulses amplified by OPCPA

V. Bagnoud, J. D. Zuegel, N. Forget, and C. Le Blanc
Opt. Express 15(9) 5504-5511 (2007)

Cited By

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Figures (7)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Figure files are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Equations (5)

You do not have subscription access to this journal. Equations are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.

Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription

Select as filters


Select Topics Cancel
© Copyright 2024 | Optica Publishing Group. All Rights Reserved