Pulse-shaping interferometer for chirped-pulsed amplification laser

摘要

A high power ultrashort chirped pulse amplifier laser system, with a chirped pulse amplifier laser module including an optical pulse stretcher, at least one optical power amplifier, and an optical pulse compressor, and a beam interferometer module in the optical path. The beam interferometer receives splits the pulse into at least two pulses, adds a time delay to at least one of the pulses and recombines the pulses to produce a temporally modulated pulse. The resulting modulated output pulse from the CPA laser module can have enhanced laser contrast due to greatly reduced subpicosecond pedestal in the immediate region of the peak pulse, or can have other desirable characteristics.

主权项

1. A high power chirped pulse amplifier system for generating a short pulse with enhanced laser contrast by constructive interference of split pulses, comprising:
a chirped pulse amplifier laser module including
an optical pulse stretcher that receives an optical pulse and temporally stretches duration of the pulse,at least one optical power amplifier that amplifies power of the temporally stretched pulse, andan optical pulse compressor that temporally compresses the amplified temporally stretched optical pulse; and at least one beam interferometer positioned in the optical path of the chirped pulse stretcher before the compressor, the amplifier or the stretcher, operable to receive an optical pulse, split the input pulse into at least two pulses, to direct the split pulses along an optical path such that at least one of the split pulses is time delayed with respect to another of the split pulses, and to recombine the split pulses after the time delay,
wherein the time delay τD is equal to about 2πn/ω0,where n is an integer approximately equal to 2ω0/Δω, where Δω is the characteristic full bandwidth of the chirped pulse amplifier laser module and ω0 is the optical frequency of an input optical pulse.