Compact 50-Hz terawatt Ti:sapphire laser for x-ray and nonlinear optical spectroscopy

We report a high-repetition-rate, compact terawatt Ti:sapphire laser system. The oscillator produces an 82-MHz pulse train consisting of broad-bandwidth pulses of 0.5-nJ/pulse energy and of 9-fs pulse duration. The spectrally shaped, lambda/4 regenerative amplifier supports an 80-mn bandwidth. A single 50-Hz repetition-rate pump laser pumps both the regenerative amplifier and a multiple-pass amplifier. The final output from this laser is a 50-Hz pulse train made from pulses of 53 mJ/pulse energy and of 244 pulse duration. For generating ultrafast x-ray pulses, 90% of the energy from the final output of a 28-mm-diameter (1/e(2)) beam is focused onto an ultrafast x-ray wire target. The energy conversion efficiency from optical (800-nm central wavelength) to x-ray (characteristic lines of K-alpha from Cu at 8 keV) pulses is estimated to be 7 X 10(-5). This laser system can also generate a lower-peak-power, dual-pulse output that can excite, simultaneously and coherently, Raman modes within an adjustable bandwidth (up to 700 cm(-1)) and at a tunable central vibrational frequency. Preliminary results for the generation of dual-pulse output and ultrafast x rays are presented. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.