Laser-matter experiments using >10^18 W cm^2 focused light intensities from terawatt to
petawatt peak-power laser systems are highly sensitive to the optical noise sources that
are generated and amplified in conjunction with the primary high-power laser pulse. This
limits the temporal intensity contrast, the signal to noise of the primary pulse intensity in
time.
This thesis presents a detailed investigation into the noise sources that degrade the
contrast of high-power laser pulses created for laser-matter interaction experiments. To
achieve this, a high-contrast multi-terawatt peak-power laser system, named Cerberus,
has been developed to deliver up to 5 J, 500 fs pulses (10 TW) using an optical parametric
chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) front-end and Nd:Glass laser rod power amplifiers.
To compliment this study, >10^10 dynamic range diagnostics have been developed
that measure these noise sources in the presence of the intense primary pulse. Parametric
fluorescence noise from parametric amplifiers was measured with a diagnostic able
to observe the real-time seeded OPCPA fluorescence noise emission and determined the
fluorescence emission to be directly linked to the level of pump-depletion, with a ~500
times contrast enhancement from the undepleted to maximum pump depletion modes
of operation. A combination of picosecond-pumped OPCPA and nanosecond-pumped
OPCPA amplifiers effectively suppresses the longer timescale parametric fluorescence to
>10^8-10^10 contrast.
A scanning third-order autocorrelator diagnostic (TOAD) was developed to characterise
the compressed pulses emitted from a range of mode-locked laser oscillator sources
and the compressed high-power laser pulses from major laser laboratories in the UK. We
found the commonly used chirped pulse amplification architecture limits the temporal
contrast from formation of an incoherent noise pedestal that can extend many hundred
of picoseconds before the arrival of the primary laser pulse. We also observed non-linear
generation of pre-pulses from internal reflections inside parallel-faced OPCPA crystals
incident with long duration pump pulses.