Abstract

The technique of chirped pulse amplification has led to the construction of a large number of Nd:glass-based terawatt-class laser systems. These systems are capable of producing focused on-target intensities of greater than 10¹⁸ W/cm²(Ref. 1). However, because of the poor thermal properties of glass, these systems are limited to extremely low repetition rates. The construction of an alexandrite- pumped regenerative amplifier has already shown that the heat loads can be significantly reduced by pumping glass at discrete absorption lines.² Through careful optimization of the regenerative amplifier and the use of additional alexandrite-pumped amplifier higher energies can be obtained at substantially higher repetition rates. The use of mixed glasses will enable these systems to produce even shorter pulses.

© 1995 Optical Society of America