Spatiotemporal characterization of laser pulse amplification in double-pass active mirror geometry

Abstract

We present a spatiotemporal model of pulse amplification in the double-pass active mirror (AM) geometry. Three types of overlap condition are studied, and the spatiotemporal scaling under the four-pulse overlapping (4PO) condition is fully characterized for the first time, by mapping the temporal and spatial segments of beam to the instantaneous gain windows. Furthermore, the influence of spatiotemporal overlaps on the amplified energy, pulse distortion and intensity profile is unraveled for both AM and zigzag configurations. The model, verified by excellent agreement between the predicted and measured results, can be a powerful tool for designing and optimizing high energy multi-pass solid-state laser amplifiers with AM, zigzag and other geometries.