Demonstration of high-contrast, high intensity laser pulses using an OPCPA preamplifier in a double CPA, Ti:sapphire laser system

Kiriyama, Hiromitsu; Mori, Michiaki; Nakai, Yoshiki; Shimomura, Takuya; Tanoue, Manabu*; Okada, Hajime; Kondo, Shuji; Kanazawa, Shuhei; Daito, Izuru; Sagisaka, Akito; Ma, J.-L.; Daido, Hiroyuki; Bulanov, S. V.; Kimura, Toyoaki*; Tajima, Toshiki

We demonstrate a high-contrast, high-intensity double chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) Ti:sapphire laser system using an optical parametric chirped-pulse (OPCPA) pre- amplifier. By injecting cleaned microjoule seed pulses into the OPCPA, a temporal contrast greater than 10 within picosecond times before the main femtosecond pulse is demonstrated with an output pulse energy of 1.7 J and a pulse duration of 30 fs, corresponding to a peak power of 60 TW at a 10 Hz repetition rate. This system uses a cryogenically-cooled Ti:sapphire final amplifier and generates focused peak intensities in excess of 10W/cm.