Generation of 100-TW Near-Single-Cycle Light Pulses and Their Application to Relativistic Attosecond Electron Acceleration

Generation of high-power pulses with few- to single-cycle duration is a promising route to producing intense isolated attosecond X-ray pulses from plasma surfaces or generating relativistic electron bunches from nanoplasmas. However, achieving such short pulse durations requires synthesizing pulses from multiple Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplifiers (OPCPAs) covering different spectral ranges, as traditional lasers or single-stage OPCPA systems do not provide the necessary gain bandwidth. In this talk, such an optical parametric synthesizer, the Light Wave Synthesizer 100 (LWS100), will be described, which has been recently finished. The LWS100 delivers 100-TW peak power, 4.3-fs pulse duration, and 300-mrad RMS carrier-envelope-phase stability. An application of the system will also be discussed in laser-plasma acceleration to potentially generate relativistic attosecond electron bunches via vacuum laser acceleration.