Picosecond laser system with chirped pulse amplification in a neodymium glass

An investigation was made of a laser (Nd : YLF/Nd glass) laser system generating pulses of 1.5 ps duration and up to 0.4 TW power at the 1053 nm wavelength. Chirped pulse amplification in a multipass amplifier was used. The amplifier had a misaligned conjugate cavity and a net gain of ~4 × 10⁶ , as well as two additional amplifiers with an output aperture 20 mm in diameter. After optimisation of the parameters of this multipass amplifier the angular divergence of the output radiation was close to the diffraction limit and the average intensity was up to ~10¹⁷ W cm^–2 in a focused beam. This laser system was developed as the frontend component of a multiterawatt laser facility under construction for research on the interaction of ultrastrong fields with matter.