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(IF/P-04) Petawatt Laser System for the Fast Ignition Studies at ILE, Osaka University

Y. Izawa¹⁾, Y. Kitagawa¹⁾, H. Fujita¹⁾, T. Jitsuno¹⁾, R. Kodama¹⁾, K. Mima¹⁾, N. Miyanaga¹⁾, H. Nishimura¹⁾, K. Shigemori¹⁾, T. Yamanaka¹⁾, H. Yoshida^1)
 
1) Institute of Laser Engineering,Osaka University, Osaka, Japan

Abstract.  We have developed a PW Nd:glass laser system, which can deliver 1 PW output with 500 J in 0.5 ps, to study a fast ignitor concept in laser fusion. In the front end of this system, the optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA) was introduced. The OPCPA solves several problems arising in an existing Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier, such as low single-pass gain, high prepulse and output fluctuation. A booster amplifier is a Cassegrain-type three pass disk system having a 350 mm clear aperture, which generated 1.1 kJ output energy with the spectral width of 3.7 nm corresponding to 0.5 ps in Fourier transform limited pulse. The spatial phase aberration mainly caused in the booster amplifier is corrected using a deformable mirror. The laser pulse is compressed by a pair of 1-m diffraction gratings and focused by a parabolic mirror. The timing jitter between PW laser and GEKKO XII is less than 10 ps, which was attained by injecting a weak pulse splitted out from the front end into the preamplifier of GEKKO XII.

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