A source of 2 terawatt, 2.7 cycle laser pulses based on noncollinear optical parametric chirped pulse amplification.
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.
Witte
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Zinkstok
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Wolf
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Hogervorst
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Ubachs
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Eikema
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