Nonlinear optics for Ultrashort High Intensity Pulse Amplification

Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification (OPCPA) is a technique that allows the amplification of high intensity ultrashort laser pulses. The goal of this thesis is the design and optimization of an OPCPA system at the Laboratory of Intense Lasers (L2I) in Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), allowing high intensity pulses with durations approaching few femtoseconds.

This system is pumped by a near-infrared laser with 1.03 mm wavelength, repetition rate of 100 kHz, tunable pulse duration between 0.1 and 1 ps and maximum of around 0.64 mJ. An amplified compressed fs pulse has yet to be obtained. However, using Parametric Amplification with a YCOB crystal, pulses with spectral bandwidth supporting down to 38.8 fs duration and amplifications of 30 times have been achieved in this thesis work.

This thesis work details the full process of amplification including the experimental setup used, studies on the supporting processes necessary for the amplification (Second Harmonic Generation and Supercontinuum Generation), and the preliminary data of the amplified pulse. This data is also compared with published results from similar experiments. Details on the ongoing conclusion of this work are also presented.