Degradation of temporal contrast from post-pedestal interference with a chirped pulse in an optical parametric amplifier

• DOI: 10.1364/oe.518096
• Publication Date: 2024-03-08T19:00:06Z
• Authors: B. Webb; C. Feng; C. Dorrer; C. Jeon; R. G. Roides; S. Bucht; J. Bromage
• Keywords: Pedestal; Optical parametric amplifier; Chirped pulse amplification

Pre-pedestal generation is observed in a 0.35-PW laser front end coming from post-pedestal via instantaneous gain and pump depletion an optical parametric amplifier during chirped-pulse amplification. Generalized simulations show how this effect arises nonlinearity applies to all chirped-pulse-amplification systems with post-pedestal. An experiment minimizing the of B-integral used isolate study newly conversion continuous into pre-pedestal. Matching numerical confirm experimental results additionally reveal third-order dispersion largely controls slope generated