Generation of high peak and average power femtosecond pulses at a 10 Hz repetition rate in a titanium-doped sapphire laser

We describe a compact solid-state laser system based on titanium-doped sapphire capable of producing 150 fs pulses with a peak and average power of 1.5 TW and 2.3 W at a 10 Hz repetition rate. The system is based on regenerative/multipass amplifiers and the technique of chirped pulse amplification. With the use of only two amplifiers we achieve a net gain of 4/spl times/10/sup 8/. We also report a tunable Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier which is used to amplify femtosecond pulses to energies in the range of 7-12 mJ from 760 to 855 nm.>