High average power room temperature laser based on a 300-mJ 100-Hz Ti:Sa disk amplifier

Area of Science:

• Laser Physics
• Ultrafast Optics
• High-Power Lasers

Background:

• Titanium:sapphire (Ti:Sa) lasers are crucial for generating ultrashort laser pulses.
• Achieving high pulse energy and high average power simultaneously presents significant engineering challenges.
• Existing systems often face limitations in pulse energy, stability, or temporal characteristics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and characterize a high-energy, high-average-power femtosecond Ti:Sa laser system.
• To investigate the performance of a specific amplifier configuration for ultrafast laser generation.
• To assess the temporal properties, including pulse contrast and spectral width, of the generated laser pulses.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a bow-tie multipass pre-amplifier and a water-cooled thick-disk amplifier.
• Employed a diode-pumped frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser as the pump source.
• Integrated an Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification (OPCPA) front-end.

Main Results:

• Generated femtosecond pulses with energy exceeding 200 mJ at a 100 Hz repetition rate.
• Achieved a broad spectral width of 80 nm (FWHM), enabling Fourier transform limited pulses below 25 fs.
• Demonstrated high pulse contrast ratios (e.g., 10^-11 at 100 ps) and excellent energy and beam pointing stability (<1% RMS and <3 μrad RMS).

Conclusions:

• The developed Ti:Sa laser system successfully delivers high-energy, femtosecond pulses with outstanding temporal performance.
• The combination of OPCPA and a thick-disk amplifier is effective for achieving high average power and excellent pulse quality.
• The system's stability and high contrast make it suitable for demanding scientific applications requiring precise ultrafast laser pulses.