Generation of 15-TW femtosecond pulses at 10 Hz in a Ti:sapphire laser chain

Summary form only given. We describe here a Ti:sapphire laser amplifier producing 15 TW pulses at 10 Hz, which has been designed to produce pedestal-free pulses. To reduce any prepulse, we designed the amplifier with broad transmission bandwidth, minimum material path length, high gain and an aberration-free system for stretching and recompressing the pulses.