Nonlinear temporal pulse cleaning of a 1-μm optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system

• DOI: 10.1007/s00340-006-2143-z
• Publication Date: 2006-02-15T15:24:56Z
• Authors: A. Cotel; A. Jullien; N. Forget; O. Albert; G. Chériaux; C. Le Blanc
• Keywords: Chirped pulse amplification; Optical parametric amplifier; Pulse duration; Self-phase modulation

We demonstrate the technique of cross-polarized wave (XPW) generation at 1 μm with a 310-fs optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system at the millijoule level. We show an improvement of the temporal contrast by three orders of magnitude with an energy transmission of 22%. Additionally, we report that XPW generation preserves the beam spatial quality and shortens the pulse duration by a factor of 31/2, resulting in a peak power transmission of ∼35%.