Scanning broadband optical parametric chirped pulse amplification based on optical beam deflection

Abstract

One of the goals pursued in laser pulse is to achieve a laser with a shorter duration and higher intensity. In the past two decades, the laser pulse duration has been shortened by more than 7 orders of magnitude due to the development of Q-switched, Mode-locked and pulse compression technology. The peak power of laser pulse has been increased to PW, even EW and ZW from initial MW with the development of pulse amplification technology, whose focused intensity can reach to 10²³ W/cm². Thus, it provides unprecedented extreme conditions, and speeds up the laser applications in ultrafast nonlinear optics, strong field physics, fast ignition of laser nuclear fusion, optic communication, etc. The optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) is one of the important technologies in ultra-short laser pulse field. It is of great significance to increase the gain bandwidth for improving the conversion efficiency of OPCPA and achieving broadband optical parametric amplification. Combining the optical beam deflection and non-collinear OPCPA, a novel scanning broadband OPCPA model is proposed based on the optical beam deflection. The basic principle of increasing the gain bandwidth for the scanning broadband OPCPA is analyzed theoretically, which ensures the phase matching of each frequency component of signal by optical beam deflecting to change the non-collinear angle constantly. Namely, the non-collinear angles of incident frequency components of signal are different from each other, which, however, makes the whole phase matching of signal, i.e. momentum conservation in optics. The optical parametric amplification of signal pulse with 800 nm central wavelength and almost 100 nm bandwidth is simulated numerically by the proposed scanning broadband OPCPA. The results show that the bandwidth after being amplified is almost the same as before and there is no spectral narrowing, and the scanning broadband OPCPA increases the gain bandwidth and conversion efficiency greatly compared with the amplification with a constant given non-collinear angle, which leads to broadband optical parametric amplification. Finally, it is necessary to make sure that the on-load voltage to the KTN crystal matches with the frequency of signal pulse in time and reduces the unfavorable voltage deviation and time-delay for the maximizing gain bandwidth and conversion efficiency and ensuring the phase matching of each signal frequency component. The results of this paper not only provide an approach to increasing the gain bandwidth of OPCPA, but also supply some theoretical references and the basis for the experimental work of OPCPA in ultra-short laser pulse system.