Suppressing scattering-induced nanosecond pre-pulses in Ti:sapphire multi-pass amplifiers

Abstract

In this Letter, we experimentally investigate a new kind of nanosecond pre-pulse, which originates from the bidirectional scattering of crystals in traditional Ti:sapphire multi-pass amplifiers. The experimental results demonstrate that the intensity of scattering-induced pre-pulses is very sensitive to the scattering angle, and the delay time between the pre-pulse and the main pulse is an integer multiple of the light path in each pass of the amplifier. An optimized multi-pass amplifier configuration is proposed, for what is believed to be the first time, to suppress the scattering-induced pre-pulses. The contrast ratio between pre-pulses and the main pulse is enhanced by more than two orders of magnitude, reaching a level of 10−10. This novel multi-pass amplifier configuration is very simple and economical, and provides an effective solution for the temporal contrast enhancement in the nanosecond range.