Bonn 2010 – scientific programme
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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik
T 89: Beschleunigerphysik XII
T 89.9: Talk
Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 18:50–19:05, HG ÜR 9
Recent progress at the Petawatt Field Synthesizer — •Christoph Skrobol1,2, Sandro Klingebiel1, Christoph Wandt1, Izhar Ahmad1, Mathias Siebold1, Sergei A. Trushin1, Zsuzsanna Major1,2, Ferenc Krausz1,2, and Stefan Karsch1,2 — 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
The Petawatt Field Synthesizer (PFS) aims at delivering wave-form controlled, few-cycle laser pulses with petawatt-scale peak power. The PFS design is based on a modified scheme of optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA), where short pulses (of the order of 1 ps) are used for both pumping and seeding. The broadband seed pulses (700-1400 nm) are amplified in a series of DKDP crystals, pumped by 515 nm pulses with a total energy of 15-20 J at a repetition rate of 10 Hz. The chirped pulse amplifier chain of the pump laser uses diode pumping and Yb:YAG as the gain material in order to support the 1 ps pulse duration. To ensure a high level of synchronization between pump and seed pulses (< 100 fs), both are derived from a common frontend and are thereby inherently optically synchronized. However, along the large optical path difference between the seed and the pump chain additional temporal jitter can be accumulated, which is detrimental to the short-pulse OPCPA scheme. After an introduction to the PFS system, we report on our recent progress in identifying and eliminating the sources of timing jitter in preparation for the OPCPA stages.