title: Multi-terawatt chirped pulse optical parametric amplifier with a time-shear power amplification stage.
abstract: We report on a compact and simple, broadband optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier system that amplifies femtosecond pulses directly from a titanium sapphire oscillator up to 2 TW power. Our system relies on a new technique - time shear - that improves the time overlap between the seed and pump pulses and, thus, improves the efficiency of the power amplification stage pumped with a ns laser. Parametric amplification was achieved in two stages: a multipass, noncollinear geometry preamplifier with a single beta-barium borate crystal, and a power booster stage incorporating three beta-barium borate crystals in the new time-shear design. Both stages were pumped with pulses from a commercial 10 Hz frequency doubled ns Nd:YAG laser. The system delivers 49 mJ pulses with a temporal width of 23 fs and its overall conversion efficiency after pulse compression is 10%.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Experimental Physics, Warsaw University, Hoza 69, PL-00-681 Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Paweł
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wnuk
authors.forename: Yuriy
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Stepanenko
authors.forename: Czesław
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Radzewicz