New Generation of Ultra-High Peak and Average Power Laser Systems

Ultra-high peak power laser systems are applicable in new and very promising areas, such as charged particles acceleration and inertial confinement of the fusion nuclear reaction. First one could be used as effective secondary source of Y and X-ray beams, which have multiple applications in industry and medicine if repetition rate will be increased, the last one could serve as a source of unlimited energy after transforming in to the power plants. New technologies are able to significantly increase the output peak power due to extraction of the higher energy extracting during pumping (EDP). The record of extracted energy about 200 J and output power of 5 PW were reached with this technique. Polarization Encoded Chirped Pulse Amplification (PE-CPA) technique as well as two stages of compression produced shorter pulse duration also are presented in this chapter. Besides, the capability of combination of the EDP method and the Thin Disk (EDP-TD) applied to Ti:Sa amplifiers to produce the higher repetition rate in the PW-class laser systems, as well as the results of the proof-of-principal experiments will be demonstrated

Final EDP Ti: Sapphire amplifiers for ELI project

Recently several ultrahigh intensity Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) laser systems have reached petawatt output powers [1, 2] setting the next milestone at tens or even hundreds petawatts for the next three to ten years [3, 4]. These remarkable results were reached when laser amplifiers (opposite to Optical Parametric Amplification (OPA) [5]) were used as final ones and from them Ti:Sapphire crystals supposed to be the working horses as well in the future design of these laser systems. Nevertheless, the main limitation that arises on the path toward ultrahigh output power and intensity is the restriction on the pumping and extraction energy imposed by Transverse Amplified Spontaneous Emission (TASE) [6] and/or transverse parasitic generation (TPG) [7] within the large aperture of the disc-shape amplifier volume. © 2015 SPIE

Highly efficient, cascaded extraction optical parametric amplifier

The scheme of cascaded extraction optical parametric amplifier (CE-OPA) has been proposed as a final amplifier for high peak power laser systems. 4D numerical simulations show that conversion efficiency of a CE-OPA system pumped with a temporal Gaussian pump pulse is as close to the theoretical limit of quantum efficiency as a conventional OPA pumped with temporal flat-top pump pulse. The CE-OPA system is also similar to the conventional scheme in output energy stability and alignment sensitivity of the phase-matching angles, too. However, with the use of the CE-OPA scheme, the requirement of pump pulse shaping can be relaxed, leading to an overall higher plug in efficiency as well as compact design. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreemen

Design of a thin disk amplifier with extraction during pumping for high peak and average power Ti:Sa systems (EDP-TD)

Combination of the scheme of extraction during pumping (EDP) and the Thin Disk (TD) technology is presented to overcome the limitations associated with thermal cooling of crystal and transverse amplified spontaneous emission in high average power laser systems based on Ti: Sa amplifiers. The optimized design of high repetition rate 1-10 PW Ti: Sapphire EDP-TD power amplifiers are discussed, including their thermal dynamic behavior. (C) 2016 Optical Society of Americ

Generation of GeV protons from 1 PW laser interaction with near critical density targets

The propagation of ultra intense laser pulses through matter is connected with the generation of strong moving magnetic fields in the propagation channel as well as the formation of a thin ion filament along the axis of the channel. Upon exiting the plasma the magnetic field displaces the electrons at the back of the target, generating a quasistatic electric field that accelerates and collimates ions from the filament. Two-dimensional Particle-in-Cell simulations show that a 1 PW laser pulse tightly focused on a near-critical density target is able to accelerate protons up to an energy of 1.3 GeV. Scaling laws and optimal conditions for proton acceleration are established considering the energy depletion of the laser pulse.Comment: 26 pages, 8 figure

High peak and average power Ti:sapphire thin disk amplifier with extraction during pumping

The combination of the extraction during pumping (EDP) amplification scheme and the thin disk (TD) technology has been successfully applied to the Ti:sapphire (Ti:sa) laser medium for the first time, to the best of our knowledge. In a proof-of-principle experiment, we demonstrate high energy broadband amplification in a room temperature water cooled EDP-TD head of stretched femtosecond pulses at a 10 Hz repetition rate, instead of performing a cryogenically cooled traditional multi-pass scheme. Hence, the EDP-TD combination can overcome the limits associated with thermal effects and transverse amplified spontaneous emission, enabling Ti:sa laser systems to have a petawatt peak and hundreds of watts of average power. (C) 2016 Optical Society of Americ