title: Pulse-contrast degradation due to pump phase-modulation in optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system.
abstract: We theoretically study the pulse-contrast degradation of optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) system pumped by a temporally phase-modulated laser. We reveal two physical mechanisms that reduce the contrast in such a parametric process: the effect of phase transfer caused by group-velocity mismatch (GVM) and the effect of FM-to-AM conversion caused by group-velocity dispersion (GVD). Degradation of the contrast is quantified via numerical simulations. To reduce the effect of phase transfer, a pair of OPCPAs seeded by the signal and idler respectively, is studied for effectively improving the contrast in such a case with pump phase modulation. The results presented in this paper are of particular importance for extremely intense laser applications requiring high contrast.
authors.affiliation: Department of Optical Science and Engineering, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Hongyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ren
authors.forename: Liejia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.forename: Heyuan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Dianyuan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Yuan