title: A source of 2 terawatt, 2.7 cycle laser pulses based on noncollinear optical parametric chirped pulse amplification.
abstract: We demonstrate a noncollinear optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier system that produces 7.6 fs pulses with a peak power of 2 terawatt at 30 Hz repetition rate. Using an ultra-broadband Ti:Sapphire seed oscillator and grating-based stretching and compression combined with an LCD phase-shaper, we amplify a 310 nm wide spectrum with a total gain of 3x10(7), and compress it within 5% of its Fourier limit. The total integrated parametric fluorescence is kept below 0.2%, leading to a pre-pulse contrast of 2 x10(-8) on picosecond timescales.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Witte
authors.forename: R Th
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Zinkstok
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Wolf
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Hogervorst
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Ubachs
authors.forename: K S E
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Eikema