Simulations of petawatt-class few-cycle optical-parametric chirped-pulse amplification, including nonlinear refractive index effects

摘要

We present three-dimensional simulations of optical-parametric chirped-pulse amplification stages for a few-cycle petawatt-class laser. The simulations take into account the effects of depletion, diffraction, walk-off, quantum noise, and the nonlinear refractive index (n_(2)). In the absence of n_(2) effects, we show these stages can generate 3.67 J pulses supporting 4 fs transform-limited pulse durations. Adding the nonlinear refractive index to the simulation, the energy output is reduced by approx11percent and the bandwidth narrows by approx129 nm, increasing the Fourier limit by approx17.5percent.