Theoretical and experimental study of 808nm OPCPA amplifier by using a DKDP crystal

The SG II 5PW laser is designed as an open ultra-short high power laser facility that operates at the wavelength of 808nm. Three optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) stages are used to ensure the uncompressed pulse energy up to 260J. With a four pass zigzag compressor, the pulse width is compressed into less than 30fs and the pulse energy about 150J. By using BBO and LBO crystal, the first two OPCPA amplifiers have been accomplished this year. 35J@21fs outputs have been achieved. Since the largest size of the LBO crystal now is only about 100mm×100mm that is not enough for the needs of the third OPCPA amplifier. In our work, potassium deuterium phosphate (DKDP) as a candidate crystal has been studied theoretically and experimentally. Phase-matching parameters for various deuterium doped rate DKDP crystals are calculated. OPCPA amplifier based on 95% deuterium doped rate is designed and the output characteristics are simulated by OPA coupled wave equations. The results show that DKDP crystals with deuterium doped rate higher than 90% can be utilized in ultra-short high power laser systems that support the pulse width shorter than 30 femtoseconds. Still by estimation, when Quasi-phase-matching techniques and collinear design are used in small signal OPCPA amplification, the greatest efficiency can reach above 55%. By experiment it has proved that the output spectrum width can be more than 80nm.

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