Fundamentals of High-Power Lasers

Abstract

The discovery of the Kerr lens mode-locking method and broadband Ti:sapphire laser medium, as well as the invention of Chirped-Pulse Amplification (CPA), led to dramatic advances in high-peak power laser technology around 1990. Ultra-high intensity lasers which can produce petawatt (=10¹⁵ W) peak power in femtosecond (=10⁻¹⁵ s) pulse duration in small-scale laboratory settings are now in operation worldwide, and research is being conducted on phenomena that appear under the extreme conditions of ultra-high pressure and ultra-high electromagnetic fields. Here, the technology for amplifying an ultra-short pulse laser and its spatiotemporal control, using the petawatt Ti:sapphire laser system developed at the Kansai Photon Science Institute (KPSI) of the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) as an example will be introduced.