Design of PETAL multipetawatt high-energy laser front end based on optical parametric chirped pulse amplification

We report on a single shot optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier designed to seed the Petawatt Aquitaine Laser on the Laser Integration Line facility multipetawatt high-energy laser. The scheme is based on a stretched signal pulse at 1053 nm amplified with 20% conversion efficiency by a monomode pump pulse at 527 nm. The homemade pump laser is able to deliver a single shot beam with a square flat top spatial profile and programmable temporal shape. A high-stability 150 mJ, 8 nm, and 4.5 ns stretched pulse is then obtained with an excellent quality spatially shaped beam.