• High Power Laser Science and Engineering
  • Vol. 6, Issue 4, 04000e58 (2018)
Xiao Liang1、2, Xinglong Xie1, Jun Kang1, Qingwei Yang1, Hui Wei1, Meizhi Sun1, and Jianqiang Zhu1
Author Affiliations
  • 1National Laboratory on High Power Laser and Physics , Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics , Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shanghai 201800 , China
  • 2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100049 , China
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    DOI: 10.1017/hpl.2018.52 Cite this Article Set citation alerts
    Xiao Liang, Xinglong Xie, Jun Kang, Qingwei Yang, Hui Wei, Meizhi Sun, Jianqiang Zhu. Design and experimental demonstration of a high conversion efficiency OPCPA pre-amplifier for petawatt laser facility[J]. High Power Laser Science and Engineering, 2018, 6(4): 04000e58 Copy Citation Text show less

    Abstract

    We present the design and experiment of a broadband optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA) which provides high conversion efficiency and good beam quality at 808 nm wavelength. Using a three-dimensional spatial and temporal numerical model, several design considerations necessary to achieve high conversion efficiency, good beam quality and good output stability are discussed. To improve the conversion efficiency and broaden the amplified signal bandwidth simultaneously, the nonlinear crystal length and OPCPA parameters are analyzed and optimized with the concept of dissipating amplified idler between optical parametric amplification (OPA) of two crystals configuration. In the experiment, an amplifier consisting of two OPCPA stages of ‘L’ type configuration was demonstrated by using the optimized parameters. An amplified signal energy of 160 mJ was achieved with a total pump-to-signal efficiency of 35% (43% efficiency for the OPCPA stage 2). The output bandwidth of signal pulse reached 80 nm and the signal pulse was compressed to 24 fs. The energy stability reached 1.67% RMS at 3% pump energy variation. The optimized OPCPA amplifier operates at a repetition rate of 1 Hz and is used as a front-end injection for the main amplifier of SG-II 5PW laser facility.
    Xiao Liang, Xinglong Xie, Jun Kang, Qingwei Yang, Hui Wei, Meizhi Sun, Jianqiang Zhu. Design and experimental demonstration of a high conversion efficiency OPCPA pre-amplifier for petawatt laser facility[J]. High Power Laser Science and Engineering, 2018, 6(4): 04000e58
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