Mid-infrared Laser System Development for Dielectric Laser Accelerators

Laser-driven particle accelerators based on dielectric laser acceleration are under development and exhibit unique and challenging pump requirements. Operation in the mid-infrared (5 μm) range with short pulses (<1 ps FWHM), high pulse energy (>500 μJ) and good beam quality is required. We present our progress on the design and development of a novel two- stage source of mid-infrared pulses for this application, which is based on optical parametric amplification. Beta barium borate and zinc germanium phosphide crystals are used, and are pumped by a Ti:sapphire ultrashort laser and seeded by self-phase modulation and parametric generation-based sources.