We present a degenerated-parametric amplifier with gigawatt peak power operating at 1030 nm and 30 kHz repetition rate. Pulses of a fiber chirped pulse amplification (FCPA) system with 650 fs pulse duration and 1 mJ pulse energy are frequency doubled and used as pump source for a two stage optical parametric amplifier. Both the FCPA and the optical parametric amplifier (OPA) are seeded by the same YB:KGW oscillator. Spectral broadening of the OPA seed signal in a short-polarization-maintaining-step-index fiber creates enough bandwidth for sub 30 fs pulse generation, while temporal synchronization of pump and signal is realized by means of a multipass cell in the OPA signal beam path. Parametric amplification of the broadband signal takes place in two 1 mm BBO crystals. Pulse compression via chirped mirrors yields 81 μJ pulses as short as 29 fs. The corresponding pulse peak power is estimated to be as large as 2 GW. Together with the good beam quality (measured M²<1.8) this device enables high intensity experiments at high repetition rates.

Date Published: 19 February 2009
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 7195, Fiber Lasers VI: Technology, Systems, and Applications, 719513 (19 February 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.808761

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7195:
Fiber Lasers VI: Technology, Systems, and Applications
Denis V. Gapontsev; Dahv A. Kliner; Jay W. Dawson; Kanishka Tankala, Editor(s)