Synthetic aperture compression scheme for a multipetawatt high-energy laser.

High-energy petawatt lasers using the chirped-pulse amplification technique require meter-sized gratings to limit the beam fluence on the surface of the grating. An alternative, studied by many groups, is a mosaic grating consisting of smaller, coherently added gratings. We propose what we believe to be a new compression scheme consisting of beam phasing instead of grating mosaic phasing. This synthetic aperture compression scheme allows us to control the beam thanks to a unique segmented mirror equipped with three degrees of freedom. With this configuration, the beam is divided into small subapertures adapted to the classical grating size. After compression, these subapertures are coherently added before the focusing stage. Therefore the alignment processes are simplified.

[1]  Olivier Morice,et al.  Miro: Complete modeling and software for pulse amplification and propagation in high-power laser systems , 2003 .

[2]  Jerald A. Britten,et al.  Multilayer dielectric gratings for petawatt-class laser systems , 2004, SPIE Laser Damage.

[3]  Colin N. Danson,et al.  Vulcan Petawatt—an ultra-high-intensity interaction facility , 2004 .

[4]  T. J. Kessler,et al.  Laser Challenges for Fast Ignition , 2006 .

[5]  David N. Fittinghoff,et al.  Advanced Compressor Designs for High Energy Petawatt Pulse Generation , 2003 .

[6]  Yoshiaki Kato,et al.  An array-grating compressor for high-power chirped-pulse amplification lasers (Optics Comm. 145 (1998) 367) , 1998 .

[7]  Steven B. Sutton,et al.  National Ignition Facility commissioning and performance , 2004, SPIE LASE.

[8]  Eberhard Welsch,et al.  Optimization of grating size in chirped-pulse-amplification. laser system , 2000 .

[9]  Igor Jovanovic,et al.  Precision damage tests of multilayer dielectric gratings for high-energy petawatt lasers , 2005, SPIE Laser Damage.

[10]  Ian N. Ross,et al.  The prospects for ultrashort pulse duration and ultrahigh intensity using optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers , 1997 .

[11]  Audrius Dubietis,et al.  Powerful femtosecond pulse generation by chirped and stretched pulse parametric amplification in BBO crystal , 1992 .

[12]  Benoit Wattellier,et al.  Piston measurement by quadriwave lateral shearing interferometry. , 2006, Optics letters.

[13]  Joachim Bunkenburg,et al.  Demonstration of coherent addition of multiple gratings for high-energy chirped-pulse-amplified lasers. , 2004, Optics letters.

[14]  Arnold Migus,et al.  Temporal aberrations due to misalignments of a stretcher-compressor system and compensation , 1994 .

[15]  C. Le Blanc,et al.  Characterisation of multilayer dielectric gratings for petawatt-class lasers , 2005, 2005 Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference.

[16]  Gerard Mourou,et al.  Compression of amplified chirped optical pulses , 1985 .

[17]  Jean-Michel Di-Nicola,et al.  Prospects and progress at LIL and Megajoule , 2004 .

[18]  Perry,et al.  Laser-induced damage in dielectrics with nanosecond to subpicosecond pulses. , 1995, Physical review letters.

[19]  Michael D. Perry,et al.  High-efficiency multilayer dielectric diffraction gratings. , 1995 .

[20]  Yasuyuki Nakao,et al.  Present Status of Fast Ignition Research and Prospects of FIREX Project , 2005 .

[21]  J. Luce,et al.  Multi-petawatt high-energy laser project on the LIL facility in Aquitaine , 2006, Other Conferences.