Third-generation femtosecond technology
Chirped pulse amplification in solid-state lasers is currently the method\nof choice for producing high-energy ultrashort pulses, having surpassed\nthe performance of dye lasers over 20 years ago. The third generation of\nfemtosecond technology based on short-pulse-pumped optical parametric\nchirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) holds promise for providing few-cycle\npulses with terawatt-scale peak powers and kilowatt-scale-average powers\nsimultaneously, heralding the next wave of attosecond and femtosecond science.\nOPCPA laser systems pumped by near-1-ps pulses support broadband\nand efficient amplification of few-cycle pulses due to their unrivaled gain\nper unit length. This is rooted in the high threshold for dielectric breakdown\nof the nonlinear crystals for even shorter pump pulse durations. Concomitantly,\nshort pump pulses simplify dispersion management and improve the\ntemporal contrast of the amplified signal.\nThis thesis covers the main experimental and theoretical steps required\nto design and operate a high-power, high-energy, few-cycle OPCPA. This includes\nthe generation of a broadband, high-contrast, carrier envelope phase\n(CEP)-stable seed, the practical use of a high-power thin-disk regenerative\namplifier, its efficient use for pumping a multi-stage OPCPA chain and compression\nof the resulting pulses. A theoretical exploration of the concept\nand its extension to different modes of operation, including widely-tunable,\nhigh-power multi-cycle pulse trains, and ultrabroadband waveform synthesis\nis presented.\nFinally, a conceptual design of a field synthesizer with multi-terawatt,\nmulti-octave light transients is discussed, which holds promise for extending\nthe photon energy attainable via high harmonic generation to several kiloelectronvolts,\nnourishing the hope for attosecond spectroscopy at hard-x-ray\nwavelengths.