Experimental study on the fluctuation–magnification effect of chirped volume Bragg grating compressor in high-energy, ultrafast, thin-disk chirped pulse amplification system

The fluctuation-magnification effect on the peak intensity of a laser pulse caused by the nonlinear Kerr effect in the chirped volume Bragg grating (CVBG) compressor is investigated experimentally for a high-energy, thin-disk, chirped pulse amplification system. The nonlinear Kerr effect occurs at the blue end, and the accumulated nonlinear phase shift (B-integral) in the CVBG rises with the increase of laser pulse energy. Experiments show that small fluctuations in peak power of uncompressed pulses cause increasing of the temporal fluctuation and spatial fluctuation due to high Kerr-nonlinearity in the CVBG when B-integral is larger than pi. Thus the initial fluctuation would be magnified by the CVBG compressor. (C) 2022 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE)