The fluctuation–magnification effect on the peak intensity of a laser pulse caused by the nonlinear Kerr effect in the chirped volume Bragg grating (CVBG) compressor is investigated experimentally for a high-energy, thin-disk, chirped pulse amplification system. The nonlinear Kerr effect occurs at the blue end, and the accumulated nonlinear phase shift (B-integral) in the CVBG rises with the increase of laser pulse energy. Experiments show that small fluctuations in peak power of uncompressed pulses cause increasing of the temporal fluctuation and spatial fluctuation due to high Kerr-nonlinearity in the CVBG when B-integral is larger than π. Thus the initial fluctuation would be magnified by the CVBG compressor.
Thin-disk lasers are present in science and industry since the early 90s, yet not so many companies offer them commercially. This was a strong motivation for HiLASE to develop a versatile thin-disk laser platform that would be easily customized to user’s needs and provide a wide range of laser parameters, like output power up to 100 W, pulse energy up to 20 mJ, repetition rate 1-200 kHz, 1 ps pulse duration and wavelength range from Mid-IR to UV. During this presentation, we would like to introduce several customized systems used in different applications and their successful integration into industrial processes.
In this paper, a practical model of a thin disk regenerative amplifier has been developed based on an analytical approach,
in which Drew A. Copeland [1] had evaluated the loss rate of the upper state laser level due to ASE and derived the analytical
expression of the effective life-time of the upper-state laser level by taking the Lorentzian stimulated emission line-shape
and total internal reflection into account. By adopting the analytical expression of effective life-time in the rate equations,
we have developed a less numerically intensive model for predicting and analyzing the performance of a thin disk
regenerative amplifier. Thanks to the model, optimized combination of various parameters can be obtained to avoid
saturation, period-doubling bifurcation or first pulse suppression prior to experiments. The effective life-time due to ASE
is also analyzed against various parameters. The simulated results fit well with experimental data. By fitting more
experimental results with numerical model, we can improve the parameters of the model, such as reflective factor which
is used to determine the weight of boundary reflection within the influence of ASE. This practical model will be used to
explore the scaling limits imposed by ASE of the thin disk regenerative amplifier being developed in HiLASE Centre.
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