Numerical simulation of short laser pulse amplification

Within this work, the numerical solution of the photon transport equation for pulse amplification is presented. Several discretization schemes are introduced that enable the calculation of the coupling between the transport equation and population inversion. It is demonstrated that the presented discretization schemes are convergent with respect to the analytic Frantz-Nodvik solution. Specifically, the application of a prediction-correction approach based on Heun's method leads to an improvement in accuracy compared to the pure explicit approach. Finally, novel discretization schemes are applied to simulate different regenerative amplifiers based on Ti:Sapphire and Ho:YAG. Moreover, bifurcation of the Ho:YAG system is analyzed, which results in the determination of stable operating regimes for pulsed amplification. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America