title: High-contrast, high-intensity laser pulse generation using a nonlinear preamplifier in a Ti:sapphire laser system.
abstract: We report a high-contrast, high-intensity Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse amplification system that incorporates a nonlinear preamplifier based on optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA). By cooling the Ti:sapphire crystal in the final amplifier down to 77 K, the chirped-pulses are amplified to 2.9 J at a 10 Hz repetition rate without a thermal lensing effect. Pulse compression down to 19 fs duration obtained after amplification indicates a peak power of 80 TW. With the OPCPA, the temporal contrast is significantly improved to better than 7x10(-9) in a few picoseconds interval prior to the main laser pulse.
authors.affiliation: Advanced Photon Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Kizugawa-city, Kyoto, Japan. kiriyama.hiromitsu@jaea.go.jp
authors.forename: Hiromitsu
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kiriyama
authors.forename: Michiaki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mori
authors.forename: Yoshiki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakai
authors.forename: Takuya
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Shimomura
authors.forename: Manabu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tanoue
authors.forename: Atushi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Akutsu
authors.forename: Shuji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kondo
authors.forename: Shuhei
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kanazawa
authors.forename: Hajime
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Okada
authors.forename: Tomohiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Motomura
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Daido
authors.forename: Toyoaki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kimura
authors.forename: Toshiki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tajima