Laser plasma acceleration (LPA) is rapidly evolving from proof-of-principle experiments to stable and reliable accelerator operation. An important next step in this evolution is to increase the repetition rate to enable performance improvements through active stabilization of electron parameters using fast feedback loops. Today, laser-plasma accelerators are typically driven by Ti:sapphire lasers, but their high quantum defect and pump laser requirements limit the repetition rate and average power. Here, we present a Ti:sapphire laser system that pushes these limits and delivers 750 mJ laser pulses at a repetition rate of 100 Hz and a spectrum that supports sub-30 fs duration. High beam quality is achieved by careful thermal management and control of thermal lensing in the cryogenically cooled amplifier crystal.

Laser plasma acceleration (LPA) is rapidly evolving from proof-of-principle experiments to stable and reliable accelerator operation. An important next step in this evolution is to increase the repetition rate to enable performance improvements through active stabilization of electron parameters using fast feedback loops. Today, laser-plasma accelerators are typically driven by Ti:sapphire lasers, but their high quantum defect and pump laser requirements limit the repetition rate and average power. Here, we present a Ti:sapphire laser system that pushes these limits and delivers 750 mJ laser pulses at a repetition rate of 100 Hz and a spectrum that supports sub-30 fs duration. High beam quality is achieved by careful thermal management and control of thermal lensing in the cryogenically cooled amplifier crystal.

Laser plasma accelerators (LPAs) are typically driven by high-intensity Titanium: Sapphire (Ti:Sa) lasers that need to produce pulses with high quality in order to generate excellent electron bunches [1]. Key aspects for the generation of electron bunches with low energy spread are the pulse energy jitter, wavefront stability and central wavelength stability [2]. The requirement for high stability in combination with high beam quality therefore places stringent demands on the entire system, starting with the seed laser.

White light generation (WLG) in bulk material can be used as a versatile broadband seed source for optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) stages. In this case, it is beneficial to optimize the performance of the WLG seeder in combination with the subsequent OPCPA stage. Here, we characterize how small variations in the drive pulse energy affect the white light seeder performance, in particular the wavelength stability of the amplified OPCPA spectrum. To isolate the influence of drive pulse energy on the OPCPA central wavelength, we introduce a phase-sensitive amplitude measurement and carefully optimize the drive pulse focus position (at the bulk) to minimize the sensitivity to the jitter of the drive pulse energy. With additional active stabilization of the delay between pump and seed pulses in the OPCPA, we achieve a central wavelength jitter of 2 x 10-4. With this performance, our source is an ideal front-end for applications in laser-plasma acceleration or free-electron laser seeding.

Extreme heat loads on optics, in particular the final pulse compression gratings, are a major hurdle to overcome in the ongoing push towards high average power (kW) and high repetition rate (kHz) operation of terawatt-class Ti:sapphire lasers. Multilayer dielectric (MLD) diffraction gratings have been suggested as a potential alternative to traditionally gold-coated compressor gratings, which are plagued by high energy absorption in the top gold layer. However, to support the required bandwidth (and ultimately the desired pulse duration) with MLD gratings, the gratings have to be operated in an out-of-plane geometry near the Littrow angle. Here, we report on the design of an MLD-based out-of-plane test compressor and a matching custom stretcher. We present a full characterization of the MLD compressor, focusing on its spectral transmission and the significance of laser pulse polarization in the out-of-plane geometry. To demonstrate compression of 40 μJ pulses centered at 800 nm wavelength to 26 fs pulse duration, we use the compressor with an MLD and gold grating configuration, and fully characterize the compressed pulses. Extrapolating our results indicates that MLD-grating-based out-of-plane compressors can support near-transform-limited pulses with sub-30 fs duration and good quality, demonstrating the viability of this concept for kW-level ultrafast Ti:sapphire laser systems.

Applications of laser-plasma accelerators (LPA) require independent control of electron beam parameters. However, due to the complex coupling of the many variables governing the laser-plasma interaction, precisely tuning these parameters based on simple scalings is often impossible or at least suboptimal. Here, we apply multiobjective Bayesian optimization to derive optimal tuning curves for LPAs, both in simulations and experiments. For electron energies between 150 and 250 MeV, we demonstrate tuning of the charge over a range of nearly 100 pC, while preserving optimal beam loading conditions with energy spreads below 5%. The derived tuning curves can explain the sometimes counterintuitive interplay between laser and plasma control variables that is necessary to find the best trade-off between competing beam properties.

Ultrafast laser systems, such as optical parametric chirped pulse amplifiers (OPCPA), are complex tools. Optimizing laser performance for a given application is often plagued by intricate couplings between different output parameters, making simultaneous control of multiple pulse properties difficult. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an autonomous tuning procedure of a white-light seeded two-stage OPCPA using an evolutionary strategy to reliably reach an optimized working point. We use the data collected during the tuning procedure to calibrate a performance model of the laser system, which we then apply to stabilize the intricately coupled laser output energy and spectrum simultaneously. Our approach ensures reliable day-to-day operation at optimized working points without manual tuning. We demonstrate shot-to-shot energy stability of <0.18 % rms, in combination with <25 pm rms wavelength stability and <0.2 % rms bandwidth stability during multi-day operation.

Frequency doubling of a Q-switched Yb-doped rod-type 4 × 4 multicore fiber (MCF) laser system is reported. A second harmonic generation (SHG) efficiency of up to 52% was achieved with type I non-critically phase-matched lithium triborate (LBO), with a total SHG pulse energy of up to 17 mJ obtained at 1 kHz repetition rate. The dense parallel arrangement of amplifying cores into a shared pump cladding enables a significant increase in the energy capacity of active fibers. The frequency-doubled MCF architecture is compatible with high-repetition-rate and high-average-power operation and may provide an efficient alternative to bulk solid-state systems as pump sources for high-energy titanium-doped sapphire lasers.

Ultrafast laser pulses featuring both, high spatio-temporal beam quality and excellent long-term stability are crucial for many applications. Here, we present a collinear OPCPA-based seed laser for 100 TW-class laser systems, that has been designed to fulfil the particularly strict demands presented by laser-plasma acceleration.

Ultrafast laser pulses featuring both high spatio-temporal beam quality and excellent energy stability are crucial for many applications. Here, we present a seed laser with high beam quality and energy stability, based on a collinear optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) stage, delivering 46 µJ pulses with a 25 fs Fourier limit at 1 kHz repetition rate. While saturation of the OPCPA stage is necessary for achieving the highest possible energy stability, it also leads to a degradation of the beam quality. Using simulations, we show that spectrally dependent, rotationally symmetric aberrations dominate the collinear OPCPA in saturation. We experimentally characterize these aberrations and then remove distinct spatial frequencies to greatly improve the spectral homogeneity of the beam quality, while keeping an excellent energy stability of 0.2 % rms measured over 70 hours.

We present measurements on the timing stability of a white light seeded, two stage OPCPA intended as seed for laser plasma acceleration drive lasers. A 1 fs rms timing jitter was observed over 66 hours.

The laser-driven generation of relativistic electron beams in plasma and their acceleration to high energies with GV/m-gradients has been successfully demonstrated. Now, it is time to focus on the application of laser-plasma accelerated (LPA) beams. The "Accelerator Technology HElmholtz iNfrAstructure" (ATHENA) of the Helmholtz Association fosters innovative particle accelerators and high-power laser technology. As part of the ATHENAe pillar several different applications driven by LPAs are to be developed, such as a compact FEL, medical imaging and the first realization of LPA-beam injection into a storage ring. The latter endeavour is conducted in close collaboration between Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Helmholtz Institute Jena (HIJ). In the cSTART project at KIT, a compact storage ring optimized for short bunches and suitable to accept LPA-based electron bunches is in preparation. In this conference contribution we will introduce the 50 MeV LPA-based injector and give an overview about the project goals. The key parameters of the plasma injector will be presented. Finally, the current status of the project will be summarized.

Applications of laser-plasma accelerators demand low energy spread beams and high-efficiency operation. Achieving both requires flattening the accelerating fields by controlled beam loading of the plasma wave. Here, we optimize the generation of an electron bunch via localized ionization injection, such that the combination of injected current profile and averaged acceleration dynamics results in optimal beam loading conditions. This enables the reproducible production of 1.2% rms energy spread bunches with 282 MeV and 44 pC at an estimated energy-transfer efficiency of ∼19%. We correlate shot-to-shot variations to reveal the phase space dynamics and train a neural network that predicts the beam quality as a function of the drive laser.

High average power high-intensity laser systems can suffer from a heat-induced deformation of the final compressor gratings, which introduces wavefront aberrations and spatio-temporal couplings to the pulse. Here, we use a simple numerical description, that was first introduced by Li et al. (Appl. Phys. Express, 10, 102702, 2017 and Optics Express, 26, 8453, 2018), to calculate the resulting degradation of the peak intensity and the 3-dimensional deformation of the laser pulse as a function of average power, and verify the results using experimental data. For a typical 100 TW-class laser we find that non-negligible pulse distortions can occur at an average power as low as 2.7 Watts. An open source implementation of our numerical description is available for researchers to estimate the effects of spatio-temporal couplings for their specific laser configuration.

Andreas R. Maier , Niels M. Delbos, Timo Eichner, Lars Hübner, Sören Jalas, Laurids Jeppe, Spencer W. Jolly , Manuel Kirchen , Vincent Leroux , Philipp Messner, Matthias Schnepp, Maximilian Trunk, Paul A. Walker, Christian Werle, and Paul Winkler Center for Free-Electron Laser Science and Department of Physics Universität Hamburg, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY), Notkestraße 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany Institute of Physics of the ASCR, ELI-Beamlines Project, Na Slovance 2, 18221 Prague, Czech Republic International Max Planck Research School for Ultrafast Imaging & Structural Dynamics, Luruper Chaussee 149, 22761 Hamburg, Germany

Highly-efficient optical generation of narrowband terahertz radiation enables unexplored technologies and sciences from compact electron acceleration to charge manipulation in solids. State-of-the-art conversion efficiencies are currently achieved using difference-frequency generation driven by temporal beating of chirped pulses but remain, however, far lower than desired or predicted. Here we show that high-order spectral phase fundamentally limits the efficiency of narrowband difference-frequency generation using chirped-pulse beating and resolve this limitation by introducing a novel technique based on tuning the relative spectral phase of the pulses. For optical terahertz generation, we demonstrate a 13-fold enhancement in conversion efficiency for 1%-bandwidth, 0.361 THz pulses, yielding a record energy of 0.6 mJ and exceeding previous optically-generated energies by over an order of magnitude. Our results prove the feasibility of millijoule-scale applications like terahertz-based electron accelerators and light sources and solve the long-standing problem of temporal irregularities in the pulse trains generated by interfering chirped pulses.