Amplification of sub-100-TW femtosecond pulses by shifted amplifying Nd:glass amplifiers: theory and experiments

We show that powerful femtosecond pulses can be obtained by use of a series of amplifying media with shifted but overlapping narrow gain bandwidth. This concept, based on chirped-pulse amplification in Nd:glass amplifiers, permits the generation of sub-100-TW pulses with durations shorter than 300 fs. Experimental gain narrowing and phase distortion are found to be in good agreement with theory.