Simple and efficient 2-TW Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplifier

Abstract

Optical parametric amplification is, potentially, an attractive method for amplification of femtosecond laser pulses up to TW powers. Parametric amplifiers have several advantages as compared to standard laser amplifiers: no heat accumulation in the gain medium, broadband operation in a noncollinear configuration (over 200 nm @800 nm for BBO crystal), high single pass gain and scaling capability. In order to exploit these advantages, one needs to use high pump intensities, since parametric amplification gain strongly depends on intensity (G ∞ exp(α · √I) , for undepleted pump regime).