Basic Concepts and Current Status of the Petawatt Field Synthesizer－A New Approach to Ultrahigh Field Generation

Abstract

Optical parametric amplification (OPA) has opened a path towards a completely new regime of generating ultrashort, high-power laser pulses, that reaches well beyond the limits of conventional laser technology.1） In combination with the chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) principle2） (i.e. OPCPA) few- cycle pulses and pulse energies of several tens of Joules have already been achieved,3‒6） however, not yet simultaneously. The Petawatt-Field-Synthesizer (PFS) project at the Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik (Garching), aims at combining few-cycle pulse durations with petawatt scale peak powers by using short pulses (on the few-ps scale) for both seeding and pumping an OPCPA chain. Here we present the design considerations for PFS, including the main OPCPA chain and the special pump source that is required for short-pulse pumping, which itself is a CPA system. The seed pulses for these two chains are obtained from a common frontend in order to provide optical synchronization. We report on the current experimental status of the PFS development. Key