Abstract
The amplification of ultrashort laser pulses to high energy and average power in optical fibers involves management of nonlinearity, gain bandwidth, dispersion, and saturation. In this paper, we investigate the use of stimulated Raman scattering in optical fibers for high-energy pulse amplification. The amplification of femtosecond pulses stretched to picosecond or even nanosecond durations by synchronized pump pulses is considered, assuming a carrier frequency difference close to the Raman gain peak frequency. An analytical solution for the pulse amplitude and phase profiles that includes the complete Raman gain spectrum plus self- and cross-phase modulation is given. To demonstrate the potential of this approach, we propose an amplifier-shifter setup with standard fibers to generate microjoule pulses with a duration around 100 fs at 1078 nm from a 250-fs nanojoule oscillator at 1030 nm. Simulations of an additional Raman amplifier stage with rod-type fibers resulted in pulse energies of a few millijoules, durations near 150 fs and peak powers larger than 10 GW after compression.
© 2015 Optical Society of America
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