Ultrabroadband TW-class Ti:sapphire laser system with adjustable central wavelength, bandwidth and multi-color operation.

We demonstrate a versatile tunable and highly stable ultrabroadband Ti:sapphire chirped pulse amplification system with a compressed pulse energy of 20 mJ at 100 Hz repetition rate. High power Ti:Sa systems in principle do not offer wavelength tunability due to gain narrowing. Here we demonstrate transform limited pulse generation from 15 fs to 94 fs with tunable central wavelength (λc from 755 nm to 845 nm) and bandwidth (130 nm<Δλ<16 nm) as well as multi-color, time synchronized, sub-100 fs pulses with user defined central wavelength separation. The unique wavelength tunability capabilities have been expanded into the UV and deep-UV by second and third harmonic generation with excellent energy stability. Enhanced energy stability is achieved by multiplexing six ultrastable diode-based solid state pump lasers.

Carrier-envelope phase stabilization of a terawatt level chirped pulse amplifier for generation of intense isolated attosecond pulses.

We demonstrate the first carrier-envelope phase (CEP)-stabilized chirped pulse amplification system with pulse peak-powers in the terawatt regime. The system, which eventually is intended to be used in the generation of isolated attosecond pulses, consists of two consecutive multipass amplification stages. The first amplification stage is a commercial CEP-stable kHz system including a single 13-pass amplifier reaching a pulse energy of 2.3 mJ. Pulses are picked after the first stage at a repetition rate of 50 Hz and are further amplified in a 5-pass power-amplifier to pulse energies that reach up to 80 mJ before compression. After compression the pulse energy is 35mJ at a pulse duration of 32 fs, signifying a peak power of 1.1 terawatt. Peak-powers exceeding 1.5 TW should easily be achievable by improving the efficiency of the grating compressor. The CEP-stability of the terawatt system is demonstrated by single shot measurements of the residual CEP jitter at the full repetition rate and show an excellent root-mean-square value of 315 mrad.

Design and demonstration of a high-energy booster amplifier for a high-repetition rate petawatt class laser system.

We have successfully developed a high-energy, high-repetition rate Ti:sapphire laser system that delivers 33 J before compression at 0.1 Hz. The final booster amplifier is based on a 100 mm diameter Ti:sapphire crystal pumped with 72 J of energy in six beams delivered by three frequency-doubled high-repetition rate Nd:glass lasers. This system is, to the best of our knowledge, the first demonstrated petawatt class laser system running at a high repetition rate.