Contrast enhancement in a Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse amplification laser system with a noncollinear femtosecond optical-parametric amplifier

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrated the contrast enhancement in a Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) laser with a noncollinear femtosecond optical-parametric amplifier. A total gain of 3.4 × 10(4) and pulse energy of 26 μJ were achieved. With the clean high-energy seeding pulse, the contrast ratio of the main amplified laser pulse to the amplified spontaneous emission in the Ti: sapphire CPA laser system was improved to around 10(10) within the time scale of hundreds of picoseconds.