Abstract

We experimentally demonstrated the contrast enhancement in a Ti:sapphire chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) laser with a noncollinear femtosecond optical-parametric amplifier. A total gain of $3.4\times {10}^4$ and pulse energy of $26\mathrm{\mu J}$ were achieved. With the clean high-energy seeding pulse, the contrast ratio of the main amplified laser pulse to the amplified spontaneous emission in the Ti: sapphire CPA laser system was improved to around ${10}^{10}$ within the time scale of hundreds of picoseconds.

© 2010 Optical Society of America

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