Attainment of a 40 TW peak output power with a visible-range hybrid femtosecond laser system

We report the results of investigations aimed at raising the peak output power of a THL-100 visible-range hybrid femtosecond laser system based on a XeF(C – A) photodissociation amplifier. The increase in power was achieved due to the shortening of the pulse duration at the system output by broadening the spectral profile of the second harmonic from 5.3 to 8 nm, which takes place in the transformation of a negatively chirped pulse of the fundamental frequency radiation in a nonlinear KDP crystal. After the KDP the radiation pulse was stretched to 1.8 ps in a prism stretcher and amplified in the XeF(C – A) amplifier. The energy obtained at the amplifier output was 1.2 J. After compression of the amplified output pulse, its duration was equal to 29.4 fs, which means that a peak output power of 40 TW was reached at the output of the laser system.