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As optical parametric chirped pulse amplification has been widely adopted for the generation of extreme intensity laser sources, nonlinear crystals of large aperture are demanded for high-energy amplifiers. Yttrium calcium oxyborate (YCa4O(BO3)3, YCOB) is capable of being grown with apertures exceeding 100 mm, which makes it possible for application in systems of petawatt scale. In this paper, we experimentally demonstrated for the first time to our knowledge, an ultra-broadband non-collinear optical parametric amplifier with YCOB for petawatt-scale compressed pulse generation at 800 nm. Based on the SG-II 5 PW facility, amplified signal energy of approximately 40 J was achieved and pump-to-signal conversion efficiency was up to 42.3%. A gain bandwidth of 87 nm was realized and supported a compressed pulse duration of 22.3 fs. The near-field and wavefront aberration represented excellent characteristics, which were comparable with those achieved in lithium triborate-based amplifiers. These results verified the great potential for YCOB utilization in the future.

Laser wakefield acceleration (LWFA) using PW-class laser pulses generally requires cm-scale laser–plasma interaction Rayleigh length, which can be realized by focusing such pulses inside a long underdense plasma with a large f-number focusing optic. Here, we present a new PW-based LWFA instrument at the SG-II 5 PW laser facility, which employs f/23 focusing. The setup also adapted an online probing of the plasma density via Nomarski interferometry using a probe laser beam having 30 fs pulse duration. By focusing 1-PW, 30-fs laser pulses down to a focal spot of 230 µm, the peak laser intensity reached a mild-relativistic level of 2.6 × 1018 W/cm2, a level modest for standard LWFA experiments. Despite the large aspect ratio of >25:1 (transverse to longitudinal dimensions) of the laser pulse, electron beams were observed in our experiment only when the laser pulse experienced relativistic self-focusing at high gas-pressure thresholds, corresponding to plasma densities higher than 3 × 1018 cm−3.

We focused on a single-shot method for directly measuring the temporal contrast enhancement of a single plasma mirror by analyzing the spectrum of a chirped pulse spatiotemporally overlapped with the igniting laser used for generating a plasma mirror. Experimentally, temporal contrast enhancement of 102 by one plasma mirror was successfully measured in a hundred picosecond timescale and was consistent with the theory. This single-shot measurement method caused no degradation on the performance of the plasma mirror, which was proved by monitoring the efficiency and far-field pattern of the igniting laser after the plasma mirror. Combined with calorimeters and CCD cameras, this method is expected to realize the single-shot online diagnosis of plasma mirrors. This method is expected to be an efficient approach for measuring the temporal contrast enhancement of the plasma mirrors.

We report on comprehensive research regarding the potential of phase-conjugate wave (PCW) generation via backward degenerate four-wave mixing process as a pulse cleaner in femtosecond high-power laser systems. We analyzed the performance of this technique by investigating the contrast enhancement capability, gain bandwidth, and energy conversion efficiency. All of these parameters are important in pulse cleaning. The numerical calculations verified that a considerably large efficiency bandwidth product and an excellent contrast enhancement capability can be realized by finding a balance between each physical effect. The simulation results based on this study provide guidance for the application of this technique in laser systems with different bandwidths. The method, which is based on PCW generation, provides new insights for femtosecond petawatt laser systems as pulse cleaners.

We propose a simple single-shot spatiotemporal measurement technique called coherent modulation imaging for the spatio-spectrum (CMISS), which reconstructs the full three-dimensional high-resolution characteristics of ultrashort pulses based on frequency-space division and coherent modulation imaging. We demonstrated it experimentally by measuring the spatiotemporal amplitude and phase of a single pulse with a spatial resolution of 44 µm and a phase accuracy of 0.04 rad. CMISS has good potential for high-power ultrashort-pulse laser facilities and can measure even spatiotemporally complicated pulses with important applications.

We proposed a self-referenced technique for measuring the spatiotemporal characteristics of ultrashort pulses using the coherent diffraction imaging. This technique includes the wavelength spatial multiplexing coherent diffraction imaging measurement and the three-dimensional spatiotemporal amplitude and phase reconstruction. In experiment, we verified the feasibility of this technique by measuring a pulse from the femtosecond laser oscillator. Wavelength spatial multiplexing was realized by the combination of two-dimensional diffracted optical element and narrow-band-pass filter, and the amplitude and phase information of each wavelength was recovered by ePIE (extended Ptychographic Iterative Engine) algorithm. This technique can measure the three-dimensional spatiotemporal amplitude and phase information of ultrashort pulses with high resolution and simplicity. In the future, it is expected to be an effective method for the comprehensive monitoring of the spatiotemporal optical field of ultrashort pulse lasers, and will be helpful for the laser performance improvement.

We proposed a single-shot diagnostic for spatiotemporal laser-plasma evolution by the multi-dimensional encoding (MuDE) holography. It can achieves high and adjustable temporal resolution measurement of three-dimensional plasma distribution without delay scanning. Experimentally, we verified the feasibility of this technique, and the retrieved results of laser-plasma evolution agreed well with the direct shadow measurement. This technique is expected to provide a helpful tool for the complex spatiotemporal evolution of plasma in ICF and high energy density physics.

The spatiotemporal plasma-lens filter proposed here enhances the temporal contrast of the ultrashort pulse laser by combining plasma optics and spatial filtering. Experimentally, the spatiotemporal plasma-lens filter has improved the temporal contrast by 2 orders of magnitude with 80% laser transmission efficiency under a 1 Hz repetitive laser operation. Not only were the pre-pulse and the pedestal cleaned out, but also the rising edge of the main pulse was sharpened.

We proposed a technique of tunable plasma narrow-band filter (PNBF) to generate high-power narrow-band pulses based on a plasma mirror and pulse chirp. PNBFs have an ultra-wide free spectral range, high damage threshold, and accurate wavelength-tunable function, and tunable sub-nanometer pulses could be achieved by controlling the pulse chirp. The feasibility of the proposed technique was verified by both simulation and experiment. Three ~0.6 nm bandwidth pulses centered at different wavelengths were obtained respectively, maintaining good near and far-field beam quality. PNBF is expected to be an effective technique for high-power tunable narrow-band pulse generation with high-power ultrafast lasers.

To obtain seed pulses of large energy, high contrast and broad spectral bandwidth for the high power laser system, a new cross-polarized wave (XPW) generator based on the gadolinium gallium garnet (GGG) crystal is designed. For the injected fundamental wave (FW) pulses exceeding tens of millijoule, the output XPW characteristics of conversion efficiency, spectral broadening and contrast improvement are theoretically analyzed. We also investigated the influence of spatial distribution characteristics of the injected chirped FW pulses on the output XPW. With incident FW pulses of 8 order super gaussian spatial profile for instance, conversion efficiency of ~73%, spectral broadening ratio (SBR) of ~2.7 (from 40nm to 108nm) and contrast boost by >7 orders of magnitude can be obtained. The impact of the FW spatial modulation on XPW was sensitive to the modulation depth, which is significant for spatial quality control of the laser beam in high power laser systems.

Plasma mirror is an effective approach to improve the temporal contrast of high power ultra-short laser system, while it might deteriorate the focal spot, which is reported in some experiments using plasma mirror. In order to investigate such far-field degradation by plasma mirror, we established a spatiotemporal multi-step focusing propagation algorithm based on the formula of plasma expansion and wave-front modulation model. The influence of plasma expansion time, amplitude and spatial frequency of wave-front error on focal spot degradation are quantitatively analyzed. The simulation results reveal that the far-field focal spot degradation by plasma mirror is caused by the non-uniform plasma expansion due to the wave-front error and the wave-front error with higher amplitude and lower spatial frequency has relatively greater effect on the focusing ability. From the perspective of high-contrast ultra-intense output capability, the requirement on the spatiotemporal quality of the pulse is put forward to avoid the far-field focal spot degradation when using plasma mirror in high power ultra-short laser system.

The temporal contrast of ultrashort and ultraintense laser pulses can significantly influence the laser–plasma interactions. As the optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) has been widely adopted in these laser facilities, the inherent optical parametric fluorescence, exhibiting a pedestal in the time window of the pump pulse, has become a significant problem. In this paper, we investigated experimentally its influence on the contrast of the compressed pulses at 808 nm using a multistage OPCPA amplifier. Compared to the highest value of 1 0 8 ever reported in the literature for such a type of regime, by adjusting the pump energy allocation between OPCPA stages and controlling the gain of small signal regime, we for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, realized a 1 0 11 temporal contrast in a pure nanosecond OPCPA design at a gain exceeding 7 × 1 0 8 , without adopting any other noise cleaning methods, such as picosecond OPCPA, cross-polarized wave generation, etc. This indicates that the OPCPA has a very significant potential for contrast improvement and to become a candidate for the future high-energy amplifiers in ultrashort high-power laser facilities.

Optimizing and measuring the femtosecond pulse duration of compression are very difficult in the case of online and vacuum in a multi-petawatt laser facility. Therefore, a method is presented in this study to determine the optimum point of pulse duration by simulation calculation and experimental measurements. Using the method in the multi-petawatt laser facility, the residual dispersion is completely eliminated, and a near Fourier-transform-limited pulse duration can be attained. These results are beneficial in finding an optimized pulse duration and guarantying the repeatability of the laser physical experiment results in multi-petawatt femtosecond laser facility.

We present a high efficiency and ultra-broadband optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) system fully based on yttrium calcium oxyborate (YCOB) crystals. The OPCPA properties of YCOB at 808 nm are studied for both high gain and saturated amplification. The non-collinear angle is finely tuned to study the variation of gain spectrum at a certain phase-matching angle of YCOB crystals. After amplification by four YCOB crystals, a total signal gain of 0.9×109 is obtained and the FWHM spectral bandwidth is still over 100 nm. An amplified signal pulse of 182 mJ is achieved with pump energy of 440 mJ in the saturated amplification stage and the conversion efficiency is about 40%. After a four-grating compressor, a pulse duration of 20 fs is measured by a second-order autocorrelator.

Pulse time delay (PTD) and defocus are mainly introduced by transmitted-based large-aperture beam expander systems in ultrashort high power laser systems due to chromatic aberration, which can significantly reduce the focal-spot intensity by spatially enlarge the spot size as well as temporally distort the pulse profile. In this paper we investigate the chromatic aberration and measure how it deteriorate the focal spot size in SG-II 5PW ultrashort laser system. In addition, we propose and design a simple chromatic aberration pre-compensation scheme based on combination of aspherical lens and spherical mirrors. The simulation results indicate that both PTD and defocus dispersion can nearly be fully compensated by applying this compensation scheme with proper alignment in the system without introducing other kinds of wave-front aberrations.

The evolution of hot-image formation in consideration of focusing lens effect is theoretically and numerically investigated. Through analysis of linear propagation theory with lens, it is shown that the location of hot image in focusing systems can be predicated through definite functional relation to hot image position in non-focusing systems, on condition that the distance between the hot image and the lens is relatively small. In addition through numerical calculation, specific variation characteristics of maximum intensity with the propagation distance representing hot-image formation process are presented, it is obtained that perturbing scatter size directly affects the location and corresponding peak intensity of the hot image. The lens influences the value of scatter size where minimum distance between hot-image plane and focus lens is generated. Finally, the effects of phase and amplitude modulation of scatter on hot image are also given. Results in this paper are of fair referenced value for controlling perturbing scatter and restraining the damage risk of optical components in focusing systems.

The evolution of hot image formation through medium with gain in consideration of the effect of spatial filter is theoretically and numerically investigated. Based on the linear diffraction theory and small-scale self-focusing theory of Bespalov and Talanov, intensity distribution of hot image in conjugate plane is derived analytically. Then, the peak intensity of hot image for different medium gain and different pinhole sizes are discussed in detail, the results show theoretical analysis is mostly approximate to the numerical simulations, furthermore, it is found that suppressing effect on peak intensity ratio with small gain coefficient is larger than that with bigger ones for determined pinhole size.

To meet the requirements of single shot femtosecond laser pulse diagnostic, some methods have been taken. Through carefully design and experiment, a single shot autocorrelator suit for the SGII 5PW laser facility is achieved.

Temporal contrast is one of the crucial physical determinants which guarantee the successful performance of laser–matter interaction experiments. We generally reviewed the influences on the temporal contrast in three categories of noises based on the requirement by the physical mechanisms. The spatiotemporal influences on temporal contrast at the focal region of the chromatic aberration and propagation time difference introduced by large-aperture broadband spatial filters, which were spatiotemporally coupled with compression and focusing, were calculated and discussed with a practical case in SG-II 5 PW ultrashort petawatt laser. The system-wide spatiotemporal coupling existing in large-aperture broadband ultrashort petawatt lasers was proved to be one of the possible causes of temporal contrast degradation in the focal region.

In this paper, we review the status of the multifunctional experimental platform at the National Laboratory of High Power Laser and Physics (NLHPLP). The platform, including the SG-II laser facility, SG-II 9th beam, SG-II upgrade (SG-II UP) facility, and SG-II 5 PW facility, is operational and available for interested scientists studying inertial confinement fusion (ICF) and a broad range of high-energy-density physics. These facilities can provide important experimental capabilities by combining different pulse widths of nanosecond, picosecond, and femtosecond scales. In addition, the SG-II UP facility, consisting of a single petawatt system and an eight-beam nanosecond system, is introduced including several laser technologies that have been developed to ensure the performance of the facility. Recent developments of the SG-II 5 PW facility are also presented.

We present the design and experiment of a broadband optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA) which provides high conversion efficiency and good beam quality at 808 nm wavelength. Using a three-dimensional spatial and temporal numerical model, several design considerations necessary to achieve high conversion efficiency, good beam quality and good output stability are discussed. To improve the conversion efficiency and broaden the amplified signal bandwidth simultaneously, the nonlinear crystal length and OPCPA parameters are analyzed and optimized with the concept of dissipating amplified idler between optical parametric amplification (OPA) of two crystals configuration. In the experiment, an amplifier consisting of two OPCPA stages of ‘L’ type configuration was demonstrated by using the optimized parameters. An amplified signal energy of 160 mJ was achieved with a total pump-to-signal efficiency of 35% (43% efficiency for the OPCPA stage 2). The output bandwidth of signal pulse reached 80 nm and the signal pulse was compressed to 24 fs. The energy stability reached 1.67% RMS at 3% pump energy variation. The optimized OPCPA amplifier operates at a repetition rate of 1 Hz and is used as a front-end injection for the main amplifier of SG-II 5PW laser facility.

By optimization, the first two OPCPA amplifiers of SGII 5PW laser have reached the conversion efficiency of 42.8% and 41.9% respectively. These are the highest values among the ever reported OPCPA laser systems.

We present a recent progress of the SG-II 5PW facility, which designed a multi-petawatt ultrashort pulse laser based on optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA). The prior two optical parametric amplifiers have been accomplished and chirped pulses with an energy of 49.7 J and a full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) spectrum bandwidth of 85 nm have been achieved. In the PW-scale optical parametric amplification (OPA), with the pump pulse that has an energy of 118 J from the second harmonic generation of the SG-II 7th beam, the pump-to-signal conversion efficiency is up to 41.9%, which to the best of our knowledge is the highest among all of the reported values for OPCPA systems. The compressed pulse is higher than 37 J in 21 fs (1.76 PW), and the focal spot is ${\sim}10~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{m}$ after the closed-loop corrections by the adaptive optics. Limited by the repetition of the pump laser, the SG-II 5PW facility operates one shot per hour. It has successfully been employed for high energy physics experiments.

The SG II 5PW laser is designed as an open ultra-short high power laser facility that operates at the wavelength of 808nm. Three optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) stages are used to ensure the uncompressed pulse energy up to 260J. With a four pass zigzag compressor, the pulse width is compressed into less than 30fs and the pulse energy about 150J. By using BBO and LBO crystal, the first two OPCPA amplifiers have been accomplished this year. 35J@21fs outputs have been achieved. Since the largest size of the LBO crystal now is only about 100mm×100mm that is not enough for the needs of the third OPCPA amplifier. In our work, potassium deuterium phosphate (DKDP) as a candidate crystal has been studied theoretically and experimentally. Phase-matching parameters for various deuterium doped rate DKDP crystals are calculated. OPCPA amplifier based on 95% deuterium doped rate is designed and the output characteristics are simulated by OPA coupled wave equations. The results show that DKDP crystals with deuterium doped rate higher than 90% can be utilized in ultra-short high power laser systems that support the pulse width shorter than 30 femtoseconds. Still by estimation, when Quasi-phase-matching techniques and collinear design are used in small signal OPCPA amplification, the greatest efficiency can reach above 55%. By experiment it has proved that the output spectrum width can be more than 80nm.

To provide seed pulses with ultra-broad bandwidth and high temporal contrast for high power laser systems, cross-polarized wave (XPW) generation based on gadolinium gallium garnet (GGG) crystal was proposed after a high-gain preamplifier. By numerical simulation, specifications of conversion efficiency with ~23.3%, contrast enhancement by ~9.7 orders of magnitude and spectrum of 626–1167 nm (full width at half maximum ~ 259 nm) supporting Fourier-transfer-limit duration of 5.5fs was realized. XPW injected by fundamental wave of higher-order super-Gaussian temporal profiles presents superior characterizations. By contrast with BaF2, XPW with GGG performs a comparable contrast enhancement, higher efficiency and more remarkable spectrum broadening, indicating a prominent application in frontend.

A novel chromatic aberration pre-compensation scheme for ultrashort petawatt laser systems was proposed. The pre-compensation scheme consists of a convex lens, group of concave lenses, and a spherical reflector combined with a conventional vacuum chamber. It provides a versatile method to accurately compensate the chromatic aberration of an entire laser system via controlling the amount of propagation time delay (PTD) induced by the compensator without changing the input and output beam size. A compensator, tailored based on the proposed scheme, was designed and experimentally evaluated for the Shen-Guang-II 5PW (SG-II 5PW) laser system at Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM). The experimental results verified that chromatic aberration in the laser system was almost fully compensated: the size of laser beam focused by an f/2.42 off-axis parabolic mirror (OAP) was reduced tremendously from 32×18μm2to about 4×4μm2at full width at half maximum (FWHM). The proposed scheme provides the flexibility to accurately correct chromatic aberration in high-power laser systems within a wide dynamic range.

Broadband exceeding 30nm amplification has been realized experimentally based on 95% deuteration DKDP crystal with 532nm pump pulses, which meets numerical analysis well. The results indicate potential utilization for OPCPA systems of compressed 30fs pulses.

We report a novel ultrabroadband high-energy femtosecond laser to be built in our laboratory. A 7-femtosecond pulse is firstly stretched by an eight-pass offner stretcher with a chirp rate 15 ps/nm, and then energy-amplified by a two-stage optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA). The first stage as preamplification with three pieces of BBO crystals provides the majority of the energy gain. At the second stage, a YCOB crystal with the aperture of ~50 mm is used instead of the KDP crystal as the gain medium to ensure the shortest pulse. After the completion, the laser will deliver about 8 J with pulse duration of about 10 femtoseconds, which should be beneficial to the attosecond pulse generation and other ultrafast experiments.

High-efficiency compression gratings based on total internal reflection (TIR) are promising alternatives of compressor gratings because of their high diffraction efficiency, potential high damage resistant ability, and compact structure. Dependence of the −1 order diffraction efficiencies on grating parameters is analyzed for TE- and TM-polarized incident light of 1053 nm at Littrow angle, which is calculated by using the rigorous coupled-wave analysis. A more intuitional view on the relation is offered through three-dimensional slicing figures instead of two-dimensional ones. The performances of high-efficiency gratings are compared and regarded as criteria for further choices, including spectral bandwidth, angle bandwidth, dispersion, and intensity distribution. For TE- and TM-irradiations, similar spectral bandwidth and angle bandwidth can be achieved by different grating parameters. However, the computer simulation result on the intensity distributions of the two polarized waves shows that such design should be used under the illumination of TE-polarized wave for lower intensity enhancement ratio, which is an important factor related to the gratings’ damage threshold.

A new type of optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier is designed and analyzed for the amplification of pulse centered at 808 nm. A novel crystal, yttrium calcium oxyborate YCa4O(BO3)3 (YCOB), is utilized in the power amplification stage of optical parametric amplification (OPA). Noncollinear phase matching parameters in the xoz principle plane of YCOB, compared with those in BBO and DKDP, are analyzed by numerical simulation. The results show that YCOB rather than DKDP can be used in the power amplification stage of OPA to realize the amplification of chirped pulse to several joules with a gain bandwidth exceeding 100 nm. This can be used to gain a high intensity pulse of ~10 fs after the compressor.

The optical aperture of ultrashort extreme intensity laser facilities, which reach 10 PW, will be beyond several hundred millimeters. DKDP is by now the only nonlinear crystal that can be grown to such diameter and used in the main optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) amplifier of such a laser system. Here, at the signal wavelength of 808 nm for the first time, we experimentally present a broadband OPCPA system that consists of a pre-amplifier in BBO crystals and a main OPCPA amplifier in two 95% deuterated DKDP crystals. The final amplified spectrum bandwidth exceeds 50 nm, and a compressed pulse duration of 27 fs has been measured. The conversion efficiency of the main OPCPA amplifier reached 24%, and a net signal gain of 13 was obtained. For the high energy OPCPA amplifier, the influence due to partial absorption on the idler pulses in DKDP crystal is theoretically analyzed. The results indicate the potential utilization of high deuterated DKDP for the main OPCPA amplifiers in a multi-petawatt laser system at 808 nm wavelength.

A model is presented to analyze the effect of chromatic aberration of the spatial filter lenses on the compressed pulse duration. The parameters of the SHENGUANG (SG) II 5 PW laser system are demonstrated as examples. The numerical simulation results show that the compressed pulse duration with full aperture is increased by 3 times compared with the ideal compressed pulse duration in the case of chromatic aberration of the lenses. The result of full-aperture measurement at the SG II 5 PW laser system is in good agreement with the theoretical calculation. In the case of full-aperture measurement, the shortest compressed pulse duration is obtained by adjusting the compressor to compensate for the phase aberration introduced by the chromatic aberration of the spatial filter lenses at the SG II 5 PW laser facility. These results are helpful in finding an optimized pulse duration, considering the chromatic aberration of lenses in the femtosecond laser facility, and in obtaining a deep understanding of the effect of chromatic aberration of lenses on the pulse contrast ratio and pulse duration in ultrashort laser systems.

Effects of stretcher adjustment aberration on the residual dispersions of the laser system is analyzed making use of the ray tracing method. It is shown that the adjustment aberrations affect the pulse contrast and we must select an appropriate adjustment precision for the stretcher in the petawatt laser system. And as an example, a proper adjustment precision of the pulse stretcher is also proposed for the SHENGUANG (SG) II laser facility.

We study and experimentally demonstrate a sensitive single-shot correlation system in which only a diffraction grating is used to produce a transverse time delay (TTD) in the reference pulse. The mechanism of the TTD introduced by the grating and the formation of the relative time delay (RTD) in the noncollinear correlation system are analyzed in detail. By using our system, we successfully measured the temporal duration of picosecond laser pulses, and a time resolution of ~0.047 ps is obtained at 1047 nm. The impact of the grating dispersion and the second harmonic beam walk-off effect on the measurement are considered.

A kind of diffractive optical elements (DOE) with star-ring topological structure is proposed and their focusing and imaging properties are studied in detail. The so-called star-ring topological structure denotes that a large number of pinholes distributed in many specific zone orbits. In two dimensional plane, this structure can be constructed by two constrains, one is a mapping function, which yields total potential zone orbits, corresponding to the optical path difference (OPD); the other is a switching sequence based on the given encoded seed elements and recursion relation to operate the valid zone orbits. The focusing and imaging properties of DOE with star-ring topological structure are only determined by the aperiodic sequence, and not relevant to the concrete geometry structure. In this way, we can not only complete the traditional symmetrical DOE, such as circular Dammam grating, Fresnel zone plates, photon sieves, and their derivatives, but also construct asymmetrical elements with anisotropic diffraction pattern. Similarly, free-form surface or three dimensional DOE with star-ring topological structure can be constructed by the same method proposed. In consequence of smaller size, lighter weight, more flexible design, these elements may allow for some new applications in micro and nanphotonics.

The non-collinear phase-matching in Potassium Dideuterium Phosphate (DKDP) crystal is analyzed in detail with signal pulse of center wavelength at 808 nm and pump pulse of wavelength at 526.5 nm. By numerical analysis, parametric bandwidths for various DKDP crystals of different deuteration level are presented. In particularly for DKDP crystals of 95% deuteration level, the optimal non-collinear angles, phase-matching angles, parametric bandwidths, walk-off angles, acceptance angles, efficiency coefficients, gain and gain bandwidths are provided based on the parameter concepts. Optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier based on DKDP crystal is designed and the output characteristics are simulated by OPA coupled wave equations for further discuss. It is concluded that DKDP crystals higher than 90% deuteration level can be utilized in ultra-short high power laser systems with compressed pulses broader than 30fs. The disadvantage is that the acceptance angles are small, increasing the difficulty of engineering regulation.

To ensure high contrast ratio for the SHENGUANG (SG) II petawatt upgrade laser facility, many factors such as pulse spectral clipping, chromatic aberration and manufacture errors of the optical elements are considered carefully in the design of the pulse stretcher. An eight pass Offner configuration is selected for the laser system and the final design of the stretcher is also given out.