Abstract

Multi-kilojoule petawatt lasers using chirped-pulse amplification need large-scale compression gratings. Tiled-grating approach has been adopted in several systems to meet the size requirements, grating tiles need to be precisely phased to ensure a transform-limited focal spot when focusing high-energy laser pulses in the target. Piston error of segmented gratings induced the focal spot to split when it arrived at multiple of the half wavelength. Alignment method using ultra-short pulse capable of controlling the absolute piston phase error within one half wavelength is proposed.

© 2007 Chinese Optics Letters

Phase-locked control of tiled-grating assemblies for chirped-pulse-amplified lasers using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer

J. Bunkenburg, T. J. Kessler, W. Skulski, and H. Huang
Opt. Lett. 31(10) 1561-1563 (2006)

Demonstration of coherent addition of multiple gratings for high-energy chirped-pulse-amplified lasers

Terrance J. Kessler, Joachim Bunkenburg, Hu Huang, Alexei Kozlov, and David D. Meyerhofer
Opt. Lett. 29(6) 635-637 (2004)

Large-aperture grating tiling by interferometry for petawatt chirped-pulse-amplification systems

J. Qiao, A. Kalb, M. J. Guardalben, G. King, D. Canning, and J. H. Kelly
Opt. Express 15(15) 9562-9574 (2007)

Tiled-grating compression of multiterawatt laser pulses

Arnaud Cotel, Caroline Crotti, Patrick Audebert, Catherine Le Bris, and Catherine Le Blanc
Opt. Lett. 32(12) 1749-1751 (2007)

Demonstration of large-aperture tiled-grating compressors for high-energy, petawatt-class, chirped-pulse amplification systems

J. Qiao, A. Kalb, T. Nguyen, J. Bunkenburg, D. Canning, and J. H. Kelly
Opt. Lett. 33(15) 1684-1686 (2008)