Improvement of contrast ratio in saturated OPCPA system by using pump pulse shaping and time delay control

Abstract

We theoretically investigated the temporal profile of a background pedestal in a single-stage optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) system, and showed that the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) prepulse in the saturation regime degrades the contrast ratio. To improve the contrast ratio in a saturated OPCPA system, a method using pump pulse shaping and the time delay control between pump and seed pulses was utilized. Through numerical simulations, the effect of the rising time and the time delay of a pump pulse on the background pedestal was subsequently investigated in terms of the contrast ratio. From the simulation results, it was determined that an optimal rising time and the time delay of the pump pulse are critical for obtaining a high-contrast broadband laser pulse from a saturated OPCPA system. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.