Super-intense femtosecond multichannel laser system with coherent beam combining

Abstract

The conceptual design of ultra-high intensity multichannel laser system with coherent beam combining is presented. Design of 1 PW and 10 PW laser channels with pulse repetition rate of 10 Hz based on optical parametric amplification in LBO crystals is considered. Requirements of the most critical pulse parameters for high efficiency coherent beam combining and their dependence on the number of channels is analyzed. Experimentally coherent beam combining of parametrically amplified compressed femtosecond pulses is demonstrated for the first time. Original two-loop relative timing jitter active stabilization scheme is proposed and experimentally investigated. 97% coherent beam combining efficiency is achieved with 110 as relative timing jitter.