Towards a petawatt-scale sub-20 fs laser technology

The combination of chirped-pulse amplification (CPA) and ultrabroad-band solid-state laser materials has made it possible to produce terawatt and even multiterawatt femtosecond pulses with ever increasing average powers. We present here on the techniques for the generation of multiterawatt optical pulses in the 10 fs range. As an example, the design and performance of a compact three-stage Ti:sapphire CPA laser system at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute are described. The system has produced sub-20 fs pulses with peak and average powers of 100 TW and 19 W at a 16 Hz repetition rate. We also discuss extension of this system to the petawatt power level.