Optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier and spatiotemporal shaping for a petawatt laser

We present a degenerate noncollinear optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier pumped by a high-energy, diode-pumped Nd:Glass regenerative amplifier delivering monomode pulses at 527 nm. The spatial mode shaping of the pump pulses is achieved with a diffractive laser cavity element, and temporal pulse shaping makes use of an electro-optic modulator and an arbitrary electrical waveform generator. Amplification at gain saturation achieves tailoring of the signal pulses. Numerical simulations with Miró software are presented and compared with experimental measurements.