Shaping of clean, femtosecond pulses at 1053 μm for chirped-pulse amplification

Abstract
We report the generation of 200-fs optical pulses at 1.053 μm using two stages of fiber-grating compressors. The usual intensity background associated with this compression technique has been reduced to less than 10−7 of the peak intensity by using nonlinear birefringence in the second fiber. These pulses are used at the front end of our chirped-pulse amplification terawatt Nd:glass laser system.