22 W average power multiterawatt femtosecond laser chain enabling 1019 W/cm2 at 100 Hz

R. Clady (1) , Y Azamoum (1) , L Charmasson (1) , A Ferré (1) , O Utéza (1) , M Sentis (1)

1 LP3 - Laboratoire Lasers, Plasmas et Procédés photoniques

We measure the wavefront distortions of a high peak power ultrashort (23 fs) laser system under high average power load. After 6 min-100 Hz operation of the laser at full average power (> 22 W after compression), the thermally induced wave-front distortions reach a steady state and the far-field profile of the laser beam no longer changes. By means of a deformable mirror located after the vacuum compressor, we apply a static pre-compensation to correct those aberrations allowing us to demonstrate a dramatic improvement of the far-field profile at 100 Hz with the reduction of the residual wavefront distortions below λ/16 before focusing. The applied technique provides 100 Hz operation of the femtosecond laser chain with stable pulse characteristics, corresponding to peak intensity above 10 19 W/cm 2 and average power of 19 W on target, which enables the study of relativistic optics at high repetition rate using a moderate f-number focusing optics (f/4.5).

Domains: Physics [physics]; Condensed Matter [cond-mat]; Materials Science [cond-mat.mtrl-sci]; Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Optics [physics.optics]; Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Plasma Physics [physics.plasm-ph]

R. Clady, Y Azamoum, L Charmasson, A Ferré, O Utéza, et al.. 22 W average power multiterawatt femtosecond laser chain enabling 1019 W/cm2 at 100 Hz. Applied Physics B - Laser and Optics, 2018, 124 (5), ⟨10.1007/s00340-018-6958-1⟩. ⟨hal-02137921⟩