The Spatial Properties of the Beam Profile of an OPCPA

Sammanfattning: OPCPA stands for optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification. It is a nonlinear method for amplifying broadband laser beams. The spatial properties of the output of the laser beam depends on the amplification method itself and the broadband configuration. The phase matching in this method causes the different wavelengths in the broadband to have different angular dispersions. In order to investigate this, an imaging spectrometer was designed, built, and calibrated. A spectrometer is a tool used to measure the wavelengths of a light source. An imaging spectrometer can also measure the spatial information of the individual wavelengths in one direction from the light source. This information can be either the position and the width or the angular dispersion. The built imaging spectrometer observes the former. In order to test the capacity of the spatial measurements of the imaging spectrometer, a prism wedge is placed in the beam path from the oscillator to give a known divergence to the individual wavelengths. After that, the spectrum from the OPCPA beam is recorded and discussed. The amplified beam is also rotated 90 degrees to see the spatial properties in the other axis.