High-energy hybrid femtosecond laser system demonstrating 2×10 PW capability

We report on a two-arm hybrid high-power laser system(HPLS)able to deliver 2×10 PW femtosecond pulses,developed at the Bucharest-Magurele Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics(ELI-NP)Facility.A hybrid frontend(FE)based on a Ti:sapphire chirped pulse amplifier and a picosecond optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier based on beta barium borate(BBO)crystals,with a cross-polarized wave(XPW)filter in between,has been developed.It delivers 10 mJ laser pulses,at 10 Hz repetition rate,with more than 70 nm spectral bandwidth and high-intensity contrast,in the range of 1013:1.The high-energy Ti:sapphire amplifier stages of both arms were seeded from this common FE.The final high-energy amplifier,equipped with a 200 mm diameter Ti:sapphire crystal,has been pumped by six 100 J nanosecond frequency doubled Nd:glass lasers,at 1 pulse/min repetition rate.More than 300 J output pulse energy has been obtained by pumping with only 80%of the whole 600 J available pump energy.The compressor has a transmission efficiency of 74%and an output pulse duration of 22.7 fs was measured,thus demonstrating that the dual-arm HPLS has the capacity to generate 10 PW peak power femtosecond pulses.The reported results represent the cornerstone of the ELI-NP 2×10 PW femtosecond laser facility,devoted to fundamental and applied nuclear physics research.

10 PW peak power femtosecond laser pulses at ELI-NP

We report on the generation and delivery of 10.2 PW peak power laser pulses,using the High Power Laser System at the Extreme Laser Infrastructure–Nuclear Physics facility.In this work we demonstrate for the first time,to the best of our knowledge,the compression and propagation of full energy,full aperture,laser pulses that reach a power level of more than 10 PW.