### Session CA: Poster Session (4:30-6:00PM)

4:30 PM–4:30 PM, Friday, October 14, 2011

Chair: Robert Berrington, Ball State University

Abstract ID: BAPS.2011.OSF.CA.6

### Abstract: CA.00006 : Petawatt-Class Ultra-High-Peak-Power Laser Design for the SCARLET Laser Facility

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#### Authors:

Patrick Poole
(The Ohio State University)

Chris Willis
(The Ohio State University)

Enam Chowdhury
(The Ohio State University)

The OSU High Energy Density Physics (HEDP) group focuses on high-intensity ultra-fast laser experiments, especially those pertaining to fast-ignition fusion. A petawatt-scale upgrade designed to significantly increase the intensity of OSU's SCARLET laser. The beam will have 400 TW peak power at 800 nm wavelength with a 5 $\mu m$ focal spot, delivering $10^{22}$ W/cm$^{2}$ with a $<$ 40 fs pulse at a repetition rate of once per minute. To achieve this, SCARLET uses a 3-pass amplifier (Ti:Sapphire crystal) irradiated by two 25 J, ND:glass 527 nm pump lasers as well as Dual Chirped Pulsed Amplification (DCPA) by way of a new stretcher with a compact mirror-striped grating design to stretch the initial pulse from 25 fs to 800 ps. Several air-spaced achromatic doublets were designed in-house to serve as image-relay telescopes to and from the new amplifier; these have been optimized to minimize chromatic and spherical aberration within the 100 nm bandwidth pulse. Also presented are results from gain modeling performed to predict effects like red-shift and gain narrowing in amplification.