title: Demonstration of large-aperture tiled-grating compressors for high-energy, petawatt-class, chirped-pulse amplification systems.
abstract: Two large-aperture tiled-grating (1.5 m) compressors, each consisting of four sets of tiled-grating assemblies, have been built for the OMEGA EP high-energy petawatt-class laser system. The techniques used for tiling individual tiled-grating assemblies and for optimizing the overall performance of a tiled-grating compressor are described. Both compressors achieved subpicosecond pulse duration without tiling-induced temporal degradation. A ray-tracing model predicted that the static wavefront of the grating tiles dominated focal-spot degradations when submicroradian tiling accuracy is achieved. The tiled-grating compressors delivered a tighter focal spot compared with subaperture grating compressors with single central tiles.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester, 250 East River Road, Rochester, New York 14623-1299, USA. jqia@lle.rochester.edu
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kalb
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bunkenburg
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Canning
authors.forename: J H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kelly