Transient gain enhancement for a train of picosecond pulses in a large-aperture KrF laser amplifier

Abstract.

The heavily depleted steady-state gain in a large-aperture amplifier can be transiently enhanced by temporally suppressing the intra-cavity amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). In our previous experiments of amplifying two 10-ps pulses in a 29-cm-diameter KrF amplifier, we showed that output fluences of three times the saturation energy density E_sat were obtained at a pulse separation of 1.7 ns for full-filling beams, whereas it took 4 ns for 5-cm-diameter beams. Our recently developed time-dependent ASE code almost reproduced this observed quick gain recovery. In this paper, we report the experimental results of amplifying six 10-ps pulses in series to the saturation level in the large-aperture amplifier. The quick gain recovery was observed also for the pulse train. Short-pulse outputs of 3E_sat were obtained at a reduced pulse separation of only 1.5 ns.