High-Power Continuous-Wave Nd:GdVO4 Solid-State Laser Dual-End-Pumped at 880 nm

A high-power cw all-solid-state Nd：GdVO4 laser operating at 88Onto is reported. The laser consists of a low doped level Nd：GdV04 crystal dual-end-pumped by two high-power diode lasers and a compact negative confocM unstable-stable hybrid resonator. At an incident pump power of 820 W, a maximum cw output of 240 W at 1064nm is obtained. The optical-to-optical efficiency and Mope efficiency are 40.7% and 53.2%, respectively. The M2 factors in the unstable direction and in the stable direction are 4.38 and 5.44, respectively.

An accurate and stable method of array element tiling for high-power laser facilities

Due to laser-induced damage, the aperture of optics is one of the main factors limiting the output capability of highpower laser facilities. Because of the general difficulty in achieving large-aperture optics, an alternative solution is to tile some small-aperture ones together. We propose an accurate, stable, and automatic method of array element tiling and verify it on a double-pass 1 × 2 tiled-grating compressor in the XG-III laser facility. The test results show the accuracy and stability of the method. This research provides an efficient way to obtain large-aperture optics for high-power laser facilities.

Theoretical analysis of frequency modulation-to-amplitude modulation on the final optics and target of the SG Ⅱ-Up laser facility

Frequency modulation(FM)-to-amplitude modulation(AM) conversion is an important factor that affects the time±power curve of inertial confinement fusion(ICF) high-power laser facilities. This conversion can impact uniform compression and increase the risk of damage to optics. However, the dispersive grating used in the smoothing by spectral dispersion technology will introduce a temporal delay and can spatially smooth the target. The combined effect of the dispersive grating and the focusing lens is equivalent to a Gaussian low-pass filter, which is equivalent to 8 GHz bandwidth and can reduce the intensity modulation on the target to below 5% with 0.3 nm @ 3 GHz + 20 GHz spectrum phase modulation. The results play an important role in the testing and evaluating of the FM-to-AM on the final optics and the target, which is beneficial for comprehensively evaluating the load capacity of the facility and isentropic compression experiment for ICF.

Status and development of high-power laser facilities at the NLHPLP

In this paper, we review the status of the multifunctional experimental platform at the National Laboratory of High Power Laser and Physics(NLHPLP). The platform, including the SG-II laser facility, SG-II 9th beam, SG-II upgrade(SG-II UP) facility, and SG-II 5 PW facility, is operational and available for interested scientists studying inertial confinement fusion(ICF) and a broad range of high-energy-density physics. These facilities can provide important experimental capabilities by combining different pulse widths of nanosecond, picosecond, and femtosecond scales. In addition, the SG-II UP facility, consisting of a single petawatt system and an eight-beam nanosecond system, is introduced including several laser technologies that have been developed to ensure the performance of the facility. Recent developments of the SG-II 5 PW facility are also presented.

High duty cycle,highly efficient fiber coupled 940-nm pump module for high-energy solid-state lasers

Tailored diode laser single emitters with long(6 mm) resonators and wide(1.2 mm) emission apertures that operate with940 nm emission wavelength were assembled in novel edge-cooled vertically stacked arrays, and used to construct a compact and highly efficient fiber coupled pump source for Yb:YAG pulsed high-energy class solid-state lasers. The novel configuration is shown to allow repetition rates of 200 Hz at 1 ms pulse duration, at an output power of 130 W per single emitter. The emission of two stacked arrays was then optically combined to realize pump modules that deliver6 kW peak power(pulse energy 6 J) from a 1.9 mm core diameter fiber, with wall plug efficiency of 50%. This represents a significant improvement in terms of duty cycle and electro-optical efficiency over conventional sources. The pump module has been successfully tested at the Max Born Institute, Berlin during trials for pumping of disk lasers.

Design,installation and commissioning of the ELI-Beamlines high-power,high-repetition rate HAPLS laser beam transport system to P3

The design and the early commissioning of the ELI-Beamlines laser facility’s 30 J,30 fs,10 Hz HAPLS(High-repetitionrate Advanced Petawatt Laser System)beam transport(BT)system to the P3 target chamber are described in detail.It is the world’s first and with 54 m length,the longest distance high average power petawatt(PW)BT system ever built.It connects the HAPLS pulse compressor via the injector periscope with the 4.5 m diameter P3 target chamber of the plasma physics group in hall E3.It is the largest target chamber of the facility and was connected first to the BT system.The major engineering challenges are the required high vibration stability mirror support structures,the high pointing stability optomechanics as well as the required levels for chemical and particle cleanliness of the vacuum vessels to preserve the high laser damage threshold of the dielectrically coated high-power mirrors.A first commissioning experiment at low pulse energy shows the full functionality of the BT system to P3 and the novel experimental infrastructure.

Improvements in long-term output energy performance of Nd:glass regenerative amplifiers

Optical damages, which severely degrade the output energy performance of Nd:glass regenerative amplifiers, are discussed in detail in this paper. By a series of experiments, it has been confirmed that these damages result from laser-induced contamination. Based on this work, several improvements are made to boost output energy performance of the regenerative amplifier. The output energy of the regenerative amplifier after improvements declines 4% after 1000 h of operation, much less than it used to, 60% after 560 h of operation.

Suppression of amplitude modulation induced by polarization mode dispersion using a multi-degree-of-freedom fiber filter

Polarization mode dispersion(PMD) in fibers for high-power lasers can induce significant frequency modulation to amplitude modulation(FM-to-AM) conversion. However, existing techniques are not sufficiently flexible to achieve efficient compensation for such FM-to-AM conversion. By analyzing the nonuniform transmission spectrum caused by PMD, we found that the large-scale envelope of the transmission spectrum has more serious impacts on the amount of AM. In order to suppress the PMD-induced FM-to-AM conversion, we propose a novel tunable spectral filter with multiple degrees of freedom based on a half-wave plate, a nematic liquid crystal, and an axis-rotated polarizationmaintaining fiber. Peak wavelength, free spectral range(FSR), and modulation depth of the filter are decoupled and can be controlled independently, which is verified through both simulations and experiments. The filter is utilized to compensate for the PMD-induced FM-to-AM conversion in the front end of a high-power laser facility. The results indicate that, for a pulse with phase-modulation frequency of 22.82 GHz, the FM-to-AM conversion could be reduced from 18% to 3.2% within a short time and maintained below 6.5% for 3 h. The proposed filter is also promising for other applications that require flexible spectral control such as high-speed channel selection in optical communication networks.