Hannover 2016 – scientific programme
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 37: Advanced Concepts for High Peak Power Ultrafast Lasers I
A 37.2: Invited Talk
Friday, March 4, 2016, 11:50–12:20, e415
Generation of short pulses with ultra-high temporal contrast at the PHELIX petawatt facility — •Vincent Bagnoud — GSI-Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany
With the construction of laser facilities capable of delivering peak powers at the 10-petawatt level, the temporal contrast of short laser pulses has received a growing interest in the last decade. The standard amplification scheme based on chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) is long known to introduce temporal pedestals and artifacts that can be detrimental to experiments and their proper understanding. In the last 10 years, several technical solutions have been proposed to overcome this limitation with good success. The crossed-polarized wave cleaning technique associated with a double CPA laser system can be found now in several implementations and is available commercially from several vendors. An alternative method based on a fast OPA is also available at various facilities like the OMEGA EP laser in the US or the PHELIX facility in Germany. In this talk, I will cover the general problematic of temporal contrast at petawatt-class laser facilities from the requirements to the current limitations. The latest results obtained with the fast OPA at the PHELIX laser where a nanosecond contrast of 10−12 is routinely achieved will also be presented.