Simulations of petawatt-class few-cycle optical- parametric chirped-pulse amplification, including nonlinear refractive index effects

Abstract

We present three-dimensional simulations of optical-parametric chirped-pulse amplification stages for a few-cycle petawatt-class laser. The simulations take into account the effects of depletion, diffraction, walk-off, quantum noise, and the nonlinear refractive index (n<inf>2</inf>). In the absence of n<inf>2</inf> effects, we show these stages can generate 3.67 J pulses supporting 4 fs transform-limited pulse durations. Adding the nonlinear refractive index to the simulation, the energy output is reduced by and the bandwidth narrows by ∼129 nm, increasing the Fourier limit by ∼17.5%. © 2010 Optical Society of America.