Use of volume chirped Bragg gratings for compact high-energy chirped pulse amplification circuits

Summary form only given. We present the first experimental demonstration of using a volume chirped Bragg grating for ultrashort pulse stretching and recompression in a compact CPA arrangement. Such a device makes it possible to overcome mode-size limitations of a fiber grating and to achieve scalable energies from an all solid-state high-energy CPA system. A chirped volume holographic grating was written in hydrogen-loaded germanosilicate glass.