Design of an optical trap for storing femtosecond laser pulses.

An optical trap for storing femtosecond laser pulses to enhance the interaction effectiveness with optically thin targets is being proposed and investigated. Presently, we studied the trapping of 10-200 fs laser pulses of wavelength 800 nm, 1 μJ energy per pulse, and 10 Hz repetition rate. To compensate the optical losses in the trap, a Ti: Sapphire crystal as an amplifying medium is being considered, which should be synchronously pumped by the second harmonic of the Nd: YAG laser.