TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heuck, Hans-Martin
A1  - Neumayer, Paul
A1  - Kühl, Thomas
A1  - Wittrock, Ulrich
T1  - Chromatic aberration in petawatt-class lasers
JF  - Appl. Phys. B
N2  - In order to avoid optical damage and non-linear effects, high-power, high-energy lasers of the petawatt class like PHELIX (petawatt high-energy laser for heavy-ion experiments) use large-aperture optics. Usually, chromatic aberration associated with these optical elements is neglected. By means of numerical simulations, we show how the chromatic aberration affects the focal intensity pattern. In particular, we make quantitative predictions of how chromatic aberration decreases the focused peak intensity. Furthermore, we prove the feasibility of a new interferometer that measures the temporal pulse front distortions which arise from expansion telescopes. We also propose a scheme that pre-compensates these distortions.
Y1  - 2006
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-6523
VL  - 84
SP  - 421
EP  - 428
PB  - Springer
ER  - 
TY  - CHAP
A1  - Heuck, Hans-Martin
A1  - Wittrock, Ulrich
A1  - Fils, Jérome
A1  - Borneis, Stefan
A1  - Witte, Klaus
A1  - Eisenbart, Udo
A1  - Javorkova, Dasa
A1  - Bagnoud, Vincent
A1  - Götte, Stefan
A1  - Tauschwitz, Andreas
A1  - Onkels, Eckehard
T1  - Adaptive optics at the PHELIX laser
T2  - Adaptive Optics for Laser Systems and Other Applications, Proc. SPIE
N2  - GSI Darmstadt currently builds a high-energy petawatt Nd:glass laser system, called PHELIX (Petawatt High-Energy Laser for Heavy-Ion Experiments). PHELIX will offer the world-wide unique combination of a high current, high-energy heavy-ion beam with an intense laser beam. Aberrations due to the beam transport and due to the amplification process limit the focusability and the intensity at the target. We have investigated the aberrations of the different amplification stages. The pre-amplifier stage consists of three rod-amplifiers which cause mainly defocus, but also a small part of coma and astigmatism. The main amplifier consists of five disk amplifiers with a clear aperture of 315 mm. These large disk-amplifiers cause pump-shot aberrations which occur instantly. After a shot, the disk amplifiers need a cooling time of several hours to relax to their initial state. This limits the repetition rate and causes long-term aberrations. We will present first measurements of the pump-shot and long-term aberrations caused by the pre- and the main amplifier in a single-pass configuration. In this context, we will present the adaptive optics system which is implemented in the PHELIX beam line and discuss its capability to compensate for the pump-shot and long-term aberrations.
Y1  - 2007
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-6215
VL  - 6584
SP  - 658402
PB  - SPIE
ER  -