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

Abstract

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