Development of front-end-system using optical parametric chirped pulse amplification for PW glass laser system

Summary form only given. The technique of chirped pulse amplification (CPA) in a laser system has realized ultra-short pulse generation for high intensity interaction. This technique on large scale Nd:glass laser systems at a 1053-nm wavelength has enabled the production of pulse powers that exceed 1 PW with pulse duration of several hundred fs, and focusable intensities that exceeds 10/sup 21/ W/cm/sup 2/. We have been developing the front-end-system in the PW laser system to generate appropriate chirped pulses. We present the experimental study on a stable high gain OPCPA (optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier) system which will be used as a pre-amplifier to replace the regenerative amplifier and multi-pass amplifier in Ti:Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/ laser system at 1 /spl mu/m.