Design and performance of a multiterawatt, subpicosecond neodymium glass laser

Technical Report · Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 1990

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/6176382· OSTI ID:6176382

Patterson, F G; Perry, M D

Broad-band solid-state materials such as Nd:Glass, Ti:Sapphire and Alexandrite, exhibit saturation fluences on the order of Joules/cm{sup 2}. Unfortunately, the large stored energy density of these solid state materials cannot be accessed directly with short pulses due to beam filamentation caused by the intensity dependent refractive index. This limits the power density in a solid state amplifier to only a few GW/cm{sup 2}. The application of chirped- pulsed amplification (CPA) to solid-state lasers circumvents this problem. With the CPA technique, a chirped, comparatively long pulse is produced and compressed to a short pulse only after amplification. The intensity in the amplifiers is kept below the level for significant nonlinear phase distortion. In this paper, we present the design and performance of a small scale Nd:Glass laser system employing chirped-pulse amplification to produce subpicosecond pulses exhibiting peak power exceeding 10 TW. 30 refs., 2 figs.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: DOE/DP
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-48
• OSTI ID: 6176382
• Report Number(s): UCRL-ID-104993; ON: DE91006749
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
NEODYMIUM LASERS
DESIGN
LASER-PRODUCED PLASMA
MULTI-PHOTON PROCESSES
PERFORMANCE
PULSE TECHNIQUES
TERAWATT POWER RANGE
TIME RESOLUTION
LASERS
PLASMA
POWER RANGE
RESOLUTION
SOLID STATE LASERS
TIMING PROPERTIES
426002* - Engineering- Lasers & Masers- (1990-)
700208 - Fusion Power Plant Technology- Inertial Confinement Technology