Parasitic lasing suppression in high gain femtosecond petawatt Ti:sapphire amplifier

Opt Express. 2007 Nov 12;15(23):15335-41. doi: 10.1364/oe.15.015335.

Abstract

New parasitic lasing suppression techniques are developed and high gain amplification is demonstrated in a petawatt level Ti:sapphire amplifier based on the chirped pulse amplification (CPA) scheme. Cladding the large aperture Ti:sapphire with refractive-index matched liquid doped with absorber suppresses the transverse lasing. The acousto-optic programmable dispersive filter (AOPDF) is used to realize side-lobe suppression in the temporal profile of the compressed pulse. The 800 nm laser output with peak power of 0.89 PW and pulse width of 29.0 fs is demonstrated.