Design and characterization of 20TW Ti:sapphire laser system

The design and characterization of a Ti:sapphire highintensity laser system is presented. A spatial fourpass imagedelayed amplifier, which can output good quality beam, is employed in the system. The system is demonstrated in order to reach the intensity in excess of 3×1018W/cm2 for ultraintensity field experiments. In order to decrease the effects of gain narrowing, an acoustooptic programmable dispersive filter is applied after the femtosecond oscillator.