Terawatt-level 2.4-m pulses based on Cr:ZnS chirped pulse amplification

Chromium-doped chalcogenides, with broad and high emission cross-sections near 2.4 mu m, are very suitable for generating high-peak-power pulses in the short-wave infrared range. In this Letter, we demonstrate a TW-level system with a repetition rate of 1 Hz by using Cr:ZnS as the gain medium. The seed pulse was amplified to over 200 mJ via two stages of amplification. To achieve the optimized amplified output, we combined Cr:ZnS elements to absorb more pump energy and used the ink-cladding technique to suppress the transverse parasitic lasing inside the Cr:ZnS elements. After compression, we obtained a 147.1-mJ pulse with a duration of 127.6 fs, corresponding to a peak power output of 0.95 TW. (c) 2023 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement