Düsseldorf 2007 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 19: Erzeugung ultrakurzer Lichtimpulse
Q 19.6: Talk
Tuesday, March 20, 2007, 11:45–12:00, 5K
Short-pulse optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) for the generation of high-power few-cycle pulses — •Andreas Henig1,2, József Fülöp1,2, Zsuzsanna Major1, Sebastian Kruber1, Jens Osterhoff1, Rainer Hörlein1,2, Ferenc Krausz1,2, and Stefan Karsch1 — 1Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Hans-Kopfermann-Str. 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany — 2Department für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Am Coulombwall 1, D-85748 Garching, Germany
In order to combine ultrashort pulse durations in the few-cycle regime with high pulse energies, we propose to pump an OPCPA chain with TW-scale short pulses (100 fs – 1 ps) delivered by a conventional CPA laser system. This approach inherently improves the conditions for generating high-power ultrashort pulses using OPCPA in the following ways. The short pump-pulse duration firstly reduces the necessary stretching factor for the seed pulse, thereby increasing stretching and compression fidelity. Secondly, it allows for a much higher contrast. In addition, the significantly increased pump power makes the use of thinner OPCPA crystals possible, which implies an even broader amplification bandwidth, thereby allowing for even shorter pulses.
We present experimental results of the first stage of a multi-stage OPCPA setup pumped by the frequency doubled output of our ATLAS TW-scale Ti:Sapphire laser located at MPQ. The final system is expected to deliver high-energy (∼ 100 mJ) few-cycle (∼ 5 fs) pulses, which together with the inherently optically synchronized pump laser will be ideally suited for future pump-probe experiments.