Experimental demonstration of a synthetic aperture compression scheme for multi-Petawatt high-energy lasers

Nathalie Blanchot (1) , E Bar (1) , G Behar (1) , C Bellet , D Bigourd (1) , F Boubault (1) , C Chappuis (1) , H Coïc (1) , C Damiens-Dupont (1) , O Flour (1) , O Hartmann (1) , L Hilsz (1) , E Hugonnot (1) , E Lavastre (1) , J Luce (1) , E Mazataud (1) , Jérôme Neauport (1) , S Noailles (1) , B Remy , F Sautarel (1) , M Sautet (1) , C Rouyer (1)

1 CESTA - Centre d'études scientifiques et techniques d'Aquitaine

We present the experimental demonstration of a subaperture compression scheme achieved in the PETAL (PETawatt Aquitaine Laser) facility. We evidence that by dividing the beam into small subapertures fitting the available grating size, the sub-beam can be individually compressed below 1 ps, synchronized below 50 fs and then coherently added thanks to a segmented mirror. " Split-aperture laser pulse compressor design tolerant to alignment and line-density differences,

Keywords: Ultrafast lasers; Diffraction and gratings

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]; Optics / Photonic

Nathalie Blanchot, E Bar, G Behar, C Bellet, D Bigourd, et al.. Experimental demonstration of a synthetic aperture compression scheme for multi-Petawatt high-energy lasers. Optics Express, 2010, 18, pp.10088-10097. ⟨10.1364/OE.18.010088⟩. ⟨cea-01217070⟩