Small-scale fluctuations of laser beam fluence at the large B-integral in ultra-high intensity lasers.

Analytical expressions for the spatial spectrum of fluence fluctuations of a laser pulse propagating in a medium with Kerr nonlinearity have been obtained. It is shown that inhomogeneities with a spatial scale much larger than the critical scale of self-focusing grow insignificantly even at large values of the B-integral. Experiments using BK7 glass and a KDP crystal as a nonlinear medium confirm the obtained theoretical results.

Improving focusability of post-compressed PW laser pulses using a deformable mirror.

The use of the post-compression technique ensures gain in laser pulse peak power but at the same time degrades beam focusability due to the nonlinear wavefront distortions caused by a spatially nonuniform beam profile. In this paper a substantial focusability improvement of a post-compressed laser pulse by means of adaptive optics was demonstrated experimentally. The Strehl ratio increase from 0.

11 fs, 1.5 PW laser with nonlinear pulse compression.

The PEARL laser output pulse with a duration of 60-70 fs was compressed to 11 fs after passing through a 5-mm thick silica plate and reflecting from two chirping mirrors with a total dispersion of -250 fs. The experiments were carried out for the B-integral values up to 19 without damage of the optical elements, which indicates that small-scale self-focusing was suppressed. The results obtained show the possibility of further nonlinear compression scaling to multipetawatt power in pulses with duration commensurate with the field period.

Single-shot laser pulse reconstruction based on self-phase modulated spectra measurements.

We report a method for ultrashort pulse reconstruction based only on the pulse spectrum and two self-phase modulated (SPM) spectra measured after pulse propagation through thin media with a Kerr nonlinearity. The advantage of this method is that it is a simple and very effective tool for characterization of complex signals. We have developed a new retrieval algorithm that was verified by reconstructing numerically generated fields, such as a complex electric field of double pulses and few-cycle pulses with noises, pedestals and dips down to zero spectral intensity, which is challenging for commonly used techniques.

High-efficiency second-harmonic generation of superintense ultrashort laser pulses.

The effect of instantaneous cubic nonlinearity on second-harmonic generation of femtosecond laser pulses is investigated. The possibility of improving generation efficiency and shortening pulse duration is analyzed. Energy conversion efficiency of 60% was obtained in an experiment in a 1 mm thickness KDP crystal at the peak intensity of 0.

Adaptive acousto-optic technique for femtosecond laser pulse shaping.

We discuss the theoretical and experimental investigation of acousto-optic dispersive tunable filters, based on quasi-collinear geometry of light-sound interaction in a tellurium dioxide single crystal. The geometry uses the effect of strong acoustic anisotropy in the paratellurite as well as peculiarities of acoustic wave reflections at the free boundary of the crystal. A mathematical concept for determination of optical, electrical, and constructional parameters of the filters is developed.