Compressing High Energy Lasers through Optical Polymer Films

Jonathan Wheeler; Gabriel Petrişor Bleotu; Andrei Naziru; Riccardo Fabbri; Masruri Masruri; Radu Secareanu; Deano M. Farinella; Gabriel Cojocaru; Razvan Ungureanu; Elsa Baynard; Julien Demailly; Moana Pittman; Razvan Dabu; Ioan Dancus; Daniel Ursescu; David Ros; Toshiki Tajima; Gerard Mourou

doi:10.3390/photonics9100715

Compressing High Energy Lasers through Optical Polymer Films

Jonathan Wheeler, Gabriel Petrişor Bleotu, Andrei Naziru, Riccardo Fabbri, Masruri Masruri, Radu Secareanu, Deano M. Farinella, Gabriel Cojocaru, Razvan Ungureanu, Elsa Baynard, Julien Demailly, Moana Pittman, Razvan Dabu, Ioan Dancus, Daniel Ursescu, David Ros, Toshiki Tajima, Gerard Mourou

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

The thin-film post-compression technique has the ability to reduce the pulse duration in PW-class lasers, increasing the peak power. Here, the nonlinear response of an increasingly available optical thermoplastic demonstrates enhanced spectral broadening, with corresponding shorter pulse duration compared to fused silica glass. The thermoplastic can be used close to its damage threshold when refreshed using a roller mechanism, and the total amount of material can be varied by folding the film. As a proof-of-principle demonstration scalable to 10-PW, a roller mechanism capable of up to 6 passes through a sub-millimeter thermoplastic film is used in vacuum to produce two-fold post-compression of the pulse. The compact design makes it an ideal method to further boost ultrahigh laser pulse intensities with benefits to many areas, including driving high energy acceleration.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	715
Journal	Photonics
Volume	9
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9100715
State	Published - Oct 2022
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors wish to acknowledge support for this work through Laserlab-Europe (EU-H2020 654148). The authors are thankful for the financial support from the Romanian National Nucleu Program (PN 19060105), Project ELI-RO 16/2020 SBUF funded by Institute for Atomic Physics (IFA) and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871161 (IMPULSE). G. Cojocaru acknowledges the support by a grant of the Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS-UEFISCDI (project no. PN-III-P1-1.1-PD-2019- contract no. 84/2020).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors.

Keywords

high power lasers
pulse compression
ultrafast nonlinear optics
ultrashort lasers

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10.3390/photonics9100715

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Wheeler, J., Bleotu, G. P., Naziru, A., Fabbri, R., Masruri, M., Secareanu, R., Farinella, D. M., Cojocaru, G., Ungureanu, R., Baynard, E., Demailly, J., Pittman, M., Dabu, R., Dancus, I., Ursescu, D., Ros, D., Tajima, T., & Mourou, G. (2022). Compressing High Energy Lasers through Optical Polymer Films. Photonics, 9(10), Article 715. https://doi.org/10.3390/photonics9100715

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title = "Compressing High Energy Lasers through Optical Polymer Films",

abstract = "The thin-film post-compression technique has the ability to reduce the pulse duration in PW-class lasers, increasing the peak power. Here, the nonlinear response of an increasingly available optical thermoplastic demonstrates enhanced spectral broadening, with corresponding shorter pulse duration compared to fused silica glass. The thermoplastic can be used close to its damage threshold when refreshed using a roller mechanism, and the total amount of material can be varied by folding the film. As a proof-of-principle demonstration scalable to 10-PW, a roller mechanism capable of up to 6 passes through a sub-millimeter thermoplastic film is used in vacuum to produce two-fold post-compression of the pulse. The compact design makes it an ideal method to further boost ultrahigh laser pulse intensities with benefits to many areas, including driving high energy acceleration.",

keywords = "high power lasers, pulse compression, ultrafast nonlinear optics, ultrashort lasers",

author = "Jonathan Wheeler and Bleotu, {Gabriel Petri{\c s}or} and Andrei Naziru and Riccardo Fabbri and Masruri Masruri and Radu Secareanu and Farinella, {Deano M.} and Gabriel Cojocaru and Razvan Ungureanu and Elsa Baynard and Julien Demailly and Moana Pittman and Razvan Dabu and Ioan Dancus and Daniel Ursescu and David Ros and Toshiki Tajima and Gerard Mourou",

note = "Funding Information: The authors wish to acknowledge support for this work through Laserlab-Europe (EU-H2020 654148). The authors are thankful for the financial support from the Romanian National Nucleu Program (PN 19060105), Project ELI-RO 16/2020 SBUF funded by Institute for Atomic Physics (IFA) and from the European Union{\textquoteright}s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871161 (IMPULSE). G. Cojocaru acknowledges the support by a grant of the Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS-UEFISCDI (project no. PN-III-P1-1.1-PD-2019- contract no. 84/2020). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 by the authors.",

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AU - Fabbri, Riccardo

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AU - Secareanu, Radu

AU - Farinella, Deano M.

AU - Cojocaru, Gabriel

AU - Ungureanu, Razvan

AU - Baynard, Elsa

AU - Demailly, Julien

AU - Pittman, Moana

AU - Dabu, Razvan

AU - Dancus, Ioan

AU - Ursescu, Daniel

AU - Ros, David

AU - Tajima, Toshiki

AU - Mourou, Gerard

N1 - Funding Information: The authors wish to acknowledge support for this work through Laserlab-Europe (EU-H2020 654148). The authors are thankful for the financial support from the Romanian National Nucleu Program (PN 19060105), Project ELI-RO 16/2020 SBUF funded by Institute for Atomic Physics (IFA) and from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871161 (IMPULSE). G. Cojocaru acknowledges the support by a grant of the Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS-UEFISCDI (project no. PN-III-P1-1.1-PD-2019- contract no. 84/2020). Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors.

PY - 2022/10

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N2 - The thin-film post-compression technique has the ability to reduce the pulse duration in PW-class lasers, increasing the peak power. Here, the nonlinear response of an increasingly available optical thermoplastic demonstrates enhanced spectral broadening, with corresponding shorter pulse duration compared to fused silica glass. The thermoplastic can be used close to its damage threshold when refreshed using a roller mechanism, and the total amount of material can be varied by folding the film. As a proof-of-principle demonstration scalable to 10-PW, a roller mechanism capable of up to 6 passes through a sub-millimeter thermoplastic film is used in vacuum to produce two-fold post-compression of the pulse. The compact design makes it an ideal method to further boost ultrahigh laser pulse intensities with benefits to many areas, including driving high energy acceleration.

AB - The thin-film post-compression technique has the ability to reduce the pulse duration in PW-class lasers, increasing the peak power. Here, the nonlinear response of an increasingly available optical thermoplastic demonstrates enhanced spectral broadening, with corresponding shorter pulse duration compared to fused silica glass. The thermoplastic can be used close to its damage threshold when refreshed using a roller mechanism, and the total amount of material can be varied by folding the film. As a proof-of-principle demonstration scalable to 10-PW, a roller mechanism capable of up to 6 passes through a sub-millimeter thermoplastic film is used in vacuum to produce two-fold post-compression of the pulse. The compact design makes it an ideal method to further boost ultrahigh laser pulse intensities with benefits to many areas, including driving high energy acceleration.

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KW - pulse compression

KW - ultrafast nonlinear optics

KW - ultrashort lasers

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Compressing High Energy Lasers through Optical Polymer Films

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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