Generation of Temporally Incoherent and Arbitrarily Shaped Optical Pulses Using Semiconductor Optical Amplifier for Fusion Applications

Broadband incoherent laser pulses have recently gained significant interest, particularly in the context of inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Since the 2022 demonstration of fusion by the National Ignition Facility (NIF) [1], numerous academic laboratories and startups have been rapidly growing with the shared goal of achieving decarbonized electricity production. The scientific corpus of plasma physics suggests that broadband incoherent laser sources could play a pivotal role by improving the deposition of laser energy onto targets while mitigating deleterious effects that reduce the coupling efficiency of the laser to the target. Such effects include cross-beam energy transfer (CBET), as well as Brillouin and Raman scattering. To the best of our knowledge, no laser source currently available on the market meets all the parameters required for traditional high-intensity laser facilities, particularly in terms of the temporal shaping of large-bandwidth pulses. Nowadays, temporal pulse shaping in intense laser facilities is typically achieved using classical electro-optic modulators (EOMs) coupled with arbitrary waveform generators (AWGs). However, due to the Mach-Zehnder structure of EOMs, they are inherently limited in terms of contrast versus bandwidth.