High-power Beam Research Articles

Intense vortical-field generation using coherent superposition of multiple vortex beams

Coherent beam combining technology applied to multiple vortex beams is a promising method to generate high-power vortex beams. We utilize the coherent combination of multiple Laguerre-Gaussian beams at the waist plane and propose theoretically a practical generation system for a high-power beam carrying orbital angular momentum by considering oblique incidence. The results demonstrate that the orbital angular momentum distribution of the combined field is similar to that of a single Laguerre-Gaussian beam within the Rayleigh length. Moreover, the combined field has relativistic intensity local spots that exhibit stable spatial propagation. The proposed system may potentially be applied to intense vortical fields, large scale nuclear fusion device, such as suppressing stimulated Raman scattering and filamentation when a laser beam propagates in plasma.

Development of a compact linear accelerator to generate ultrahigh dose rate high-energy X-rays for FLASH radiotherapy applications.

In recent years, the FLASH effect, in which ultrahigh dose rate (UHDR) radiotherapy (RT) can significantly reduce toxicity to normal tissue while maintaining antitumor efficacy, has been verified in many studies and even applied in human clinical cases. This work evaluates whether a room-temperature radio-frequency (RF) linear accelerator (linac) system can produce UHDR high-energy X-rays exceeding a dose rate of 40Gy/s at a clinical source-surface distance (SSD), exploring the possibility of a compact and economical clinical FLASH RT machine suitable for most hospital treatmentrooms. A 1.65m long S-band backward-traveling-wave (BTW) electron linac was developed to generate high-current electron beams, supplied by a commercial klystron-based power source. A tungsten-copper electron-to-photon conversion target for UHDR X-rays was designed and optimized with Monte Carlo (MC) simulations using Geant4 and thermal finite element analysis (FEA) simulations using ANSYS. EBT3 and EBT-XD radiochromic films, which were calibrated with a clinical machine Varian VitalBeam, were used for absolute dose measurements. A PTW ionization chamber detector was used to measure the relative total dose and a plane-parallel ionization chamber detector was used to measure the relative normalized dose of each pulse. The BTW linac generated 300-mA-pulse-current 11 MeV electron beams with 29kW mean beam power, and the conversion target could sustain this high beam power within a maximum irradiation duration of 0.75 s. The mean energy of the produced X-rays was 1.66 MeV in the MC simulation. The measured flat-filter-free (FFF) maximum mean dose rate of the room-temperature linac exceeded 80Gy/s at an SSD of 50cm and 45Gy/s at an SSD of 67.9cm, both at a 2.1cm depth of the water phantom. The FFF radiation fields at 50cm and 67.9cm SSD at a 2.1cm depth of the water phantom showed Gaussian-like distributions with 14.3 and 20cm full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) values, respectively. This work demonstrated the feasibility of UHDR X-rays produced by a room-temperature RF linac, and explored the further optimization of system stability. It shows that a simple and compact UHDR X-ray solution can be facilitated for both FLASH-RT scientific research and clinical applications.

An Overview of Electron Accelerator Applications in Environmental Protection with an Emerging Pollutants Decomposing approach

Bachground: In recent years, problems related to environmental damage and natural resource degradation are receiving increased attention from researchers throughout the world. This occurs mostly, through un-eco-friendly technology used to produce industrial products. Therefore, eco-friendly science and technology (green technology) which can empower and control the existing coal power plant for the virtue of society and the earth is required. Today, the design and application of electron accelerator has been well developed due to reliability, larger capacity, greater energy range, and cost reduction. Technologies that use particle accelerators are considered critical to advance high-tech processes in various economic fields, including material processing, sterilization of medical products, environmental protection, medicine, cargo inspection, chemical analysis, nuclear energy, etc. High-energy and high-power beams pose the ability to alter the physical, chemical, and biological properties of materials on an industrial scale. This technology has received more attention than other conventional treatment methods due to the need for smaller areas, high electrical efficiency, and production of by-products such as fertilizers. The electronic beam process in the treatment of off-gas, wastewater, and sludge, as well as the decomposition of emerging contaminants, is mentioned as a non-chemical, additive-free process that uses radiolysis to effectively decompose contaminants. The literature addresses various applications of electron accelerators in order to modify the physical, chemical, or biological properties of industrial pollutants in the liquid, solid, and gas phases through treatment by ionizing radiation to control environmental pollution. Many advantages can be achieved through this method, which is known as radiation processing.

A novel beamforming technique using mmWave antenna arrays for 5G wireless communication networks

Millimeter wave (mmWave) multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) and beamforming technologies are most likely the integral parts and the key enablers of 5G-and-Beyond (5G-B) wireless communication systems. From that perspective, this manuscript proposes an efficient digital beamforming technique for 5G applications. The suggested approach is formulated based on a reliable sampling technique that effectively samples the interference-plus-noise covariance matrix (IPNCM) to construct an efficient projection matrix (PM). The proposed technique is therefore named interference-plus-noise PM (IPNPM) beamformer. Next, a compact-size rectangular microstrip antenna operating at 49.3 GHz having 1.7 GHz potential bandwidth is designed using CST microwave studio. The designed antenna is subsequently used to model a 32-element uniform linear array (ULA) representing a typical 5G base station. The elements of the modeled ULA are then manually fed with the complex-weights generated from the proposed beamformer to produce high-power beams and deep nulls toward the desired and undesired locations, respectively. To further improve the beamformer performance in terms of minimizing radiating power within undesired regions, an iterative sidelobe level (SLL) suppression technique is developed and integrated with the proposed beamformer. The conducted theoretical analysis justifies that the IPNPM beamformer requires less arithmetic operations than the well-known beamforming approaches. To reveal the benefits of the proposed technique, the array radiation pattern based on the proposed beamformer is plotted and compared with those for the three widely used approaches. An intensive Monte Carlo simulation is also carried out in which the IPNPM beamformer performance is systemically compared with the popular approaches based on the output signal to interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) criterion. The achieved results demonstrate that the proposed approach is superior and surpasses the rival algorithms in terms of generating deeper nulls, enhanced output SINR, and lower execution time. It is also demonstrated that, unlike the existing SLL reduction techniques, the newly developed SLL suppressor reduces the SLLs of the proposed beamformer to a predefined threshold value (i.e., −24 dB) after few iterations.

Generation of Circulating Cavity Magnon Polaritons

In a circulating cavity magnon polariton (quantized spin wave plus photon, resonating in a microwave chamber), the hybrid state and a noninteracting photonic state rotate in opposite directions---an important phenomenon for generating chiral states of electromagnetic modes in cavity magnonics and microwave engineering, to impart angular momentum upon standing waves. This study demonstrates the unidirectional nature of the mode propagation, paving the way for the generation of a high-power microwave beam with high coherence and narrow bandwidth. The authors also demonstrate how the unidirectional mode propagation results in nonreciprocity of the mode's transmission amplitudes and phases.

High speed, high power 2D beam steering for mitigation of optomechanical parametric instability in gravitational wave detectors.

In this paper, we propose what we believe to be a novel strategy to control optomechanical parametric instability (PI) in gravitational wave (GW) detectors based on radiation pressure. The fast deflection of a high-power beam is the key element of our approach. We built a 2D deflection system based on a pair of acousto-optic modulators (AOMs) that combines high rapidity and a large scan range. As a fast frequency switching configurable AOM driver, we used a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) combined with a high-performance personal computer (PC). In this way, we demonstrate a 2D beam steering system with flat efficiency over the whole scan range and with a transition time of 50 ns between two arbitrary consecutive deflection positions for a beam power of 3.6 W.

Влияние предварительной термической обработки на морфологию углеродного слоя, формирующегося на поверхности хлорированного поливинилхлорида при воздействии мощного ионного пучка

The effect of preliminary heat treatment on the morphology of carbon layer formed on the surface of chlorinated polyvinyl chloride with the addition of ferrocene (10 % of polymer weight) under the impact of a high-power nanosecond-durable ion beam has been studied. Preliminary exposure of samples in an oven at different temperatures for 1 hour leads to partial dehydrochlorination of the surface layer of the polymer film and interchain crosslinking, creating centers for the start of the carbonization reaction, and thus affects the formation of carbon nanostructures during subsequent irradiation with a high-power ion beam. The possible mechanism of carbon nanostructures formation from chlorinated polyvinyl chloride under the impact of a high-power ion beam and the mechanism of the influence of preliminary heat treatment on it are considered. It has been established that different heat treatment temperatures lead to different morphologies of the resulting carbon nanostructures. On the control sample and the sample subjected to heating to 100 °C, only nanofibers are formed, preheating to 150 °C leads to the formation of a porous structure with nanosized pores under the nanofibers, and preheating to 200 °C leads to a significant decrease in the porosity and concentration of nanofibers.

Свойства мощного ионного пучка с энергией частиц до 1 МэВ, получаемого из плазмы, созданной высоковольтным импульсом на графитовом катоде

The features of the method for generating gas-vapor plasma and the characteristics of a high-power ion beam (HPIB) obtained in a vacuum diode with a graphite cathode using a plasma-forming high-voltage nanosecond pulse are described. The cathode material and the two-pulse mode of operation of the TEMP-4 type diode make it possible to form a multicomponent nanosecond HPIB with a maximum ion energy of up to 1 MeV, a particle flux density on the surface of ~ 1013 ion/cm2, and a power density on the sample surface of up to 107 W/cm2 to modify the surface properties of structural materials. Materials are published within the framework of scientific discussion. The authors invite researchers of the generation of high-power beams of non-gas ions and the processes of beam modification of solid-state materials to discuss the topics of this article.

Review of High Average Power and High Beam Quality LD-Pumped Ytterbium-Doped Fiber Laser Oscillators and Amplifiers

Review of High Average Power and High Beam Quality LD-Pumped Ytterbium-Doped Fiber Laser Oscillators and Amplifiers

Double-ended output near-single-mode quasi-continuous wave monolithic fiber laser

Quasi-continuous fiber lasers have a broad application prospect in the industrial field. However, in the current research on quasi-continuous wave (QCW) fiber lasers only the single-ended output structure is used. A double-ended output fiber laser oscillator needs only one resonator to realize two laser outputs. Compared with single-ended output laser, it has a low cost, small volume and high work efficiency. It is expected to achieve higher power laser output through double-ended output beam combining. Therefore, the double-ended output QCW fiber laser is proposed and studied in this paper. The steady-state rate equation establishes a theoretical model of a QCW fiber laser oscillator with two ends, considering the stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) and amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). The output power, time domain and nonlinear effects of this type of laser are simulated. The results show that the overshoot effect caused by relaxation oscillation will produce a large amount of thermal deposition and ultra-high peak power in the fiber. It will reduce the nonlinear threshold and limit the increase of power of the QCW fiber laser. Prolonging the rise time of the pump can effectively suppress the relaxation oscillation and obtain a stable pulse output during the pulse duration. In addition, compared with the single-ended QCW laser, the double-ended output structure changes the energy distribution in the fiber and reduces the accumulation of nonlinear effects in the gain fiber, thus inhibiting SRS. Then, the ytterbium-doped fiber with a core/cladding diameter of 20/400 μm is used to achieve the first double-ended QCW laser output with a peak power of 3 kW. The peak power values at both ends are 1218 and 2220 W, respectively. The values of corresponding beam quality factor <i>M</i><sup>2</sup> are 1.34 and 1.27. The optical-to-optical conversion efficiency is about 60%. The pulse width is 100 μs, and the repetition frequency is 1 kHz. This research verifies the feasibility of high power and high beam quality output by double-ended output QCW fiber laser, which provides support for small volume, low cost, high power and high brightness QCW fiber laser. Further breakthroughs in the research and application of high-power fiber lasers are expected to be made by continually optimizing experiments, increasing pump power, and improving the laser’s output power and conversion efficiency.

The Coexistence of Orthogonal Current Structures and the Development of Different-Type Weibel Instabilities in Adjacent Regions of a Plasma Transition Layer with a Hot Electron Flow

Abstract—By means of particle-in-cell numerical simulations, we find the possibility of the formation andlong-term coexistence of orthogonal current structures in adjacent layers of an inhomogeneous cold plasmapenetrated by a hot electron flow. The formationof these structures is shown to occur in a wide range ofparameters specifying collisionless expansion of high-energy electrons out of a dense plasma into a rarefiedplasma. These structures originate due to the development of Weibel instabilities of two different types thatare associated with qualitatively different anisotropic electron velocity distributions. Experiments with a laserplasma produced in the course of target ablation by means of quasi-cylindrical focusing of a high-power femtosecond-laser radiation beam are proposed in order to observe the predicted phenomenon

A concept of "materials" diffraction and imaging beamline for SKIF: Siberian circular photon source.

Over the next decade, the extremely brilliant fourth generation synchrotron radiation sources are set to become a key driving force in materials characterization and technology development. In this study, we present a conceptual design of a versatile "Materia" diffraction and imaging beamline for a low-emittance synchrotron radiation facility. The beamline was optimized for operation with three main principal delivery regimes: parallel collimated beam ∼1mm beam size, micro-focus regime with ∼10μm beam spot size on the sample, and nano-focus regime with <100nm focus. All regimes will operate in the photon energy range of 10-30keV with the key feature of the beamline being fast switching between them, as well as between the various realizations of diffraction and imaging operation modes while maintaining the target beam position at the sample, and with both spectrally narrow and spectrally broad beams up to the energy band ΔE/E of 5 × 10-2. The manuscript presents the details of the principal characteristics selected for the insertion device and beamline optics, the materials characterization techniques, including the simulations of thermal load impact on the critical beamline optics components. Significant efforts were made to design the monochromators to mitigate the very high beam power load produced by a superconducting undulator source. The manuscript will be of interest to research groups involved in the design of new synchrotron beamlines.

Analysis of Thermal Effects in Kilowatt High Power Diamond Raman Lasers

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) diamond crystal is considered as an ideal material platform for Raman lasers with both high power and good beam quality due to its excellent Raman and thermal characteristics. With the continuous development of CVD diamond crystal growth technology, diamond Raman lasers (DRLs) have shown significant advantages in achieving wavelength expansion with both high beam quality and high-power operation. However, with the output power of DRLs reaching the kilowatt level, the adverse effect of the thermal impact on the beam quality is progressively worsening. Aiming to enunciate the underlying restrictions of the thermal effects for high-power DRLs (e.g., recently reported 1.2 kW), we here establish a thermal-structural coupling model, based on which the influence of the pump power, cavity structure, and crystal size have been systematically studied. The results show that a symmetrical concentric cavity has less thermal impact on the device than an asymmetrical concentric cavity. Under the ideal heat dissipation condition, the highest temperature rise in the diamond crystal is 23.4 K for an output power of ~2.8 kW. The transient simulation further shows that the heating and cooling process of DRLs is almost unaffected by the pump power, and the times to reach a steady state are only 1.5 ms and 2.5 ms, respectively. In addition, it is also found that increasing the curvature radius of the cavity mirror, the length and width of the crystal, or decreasing the thickness of the crystal is beneficial to alleviating the thermal impact of the device. The findings of this work provide some helpful insights into the design of the cavity structure and heat dissipation system of DRLs, which might facilitate their future development towards a higher power.

Input optics systems of the KAGRA detector during O3GK

Abstract KAGRA, the underground and cryogenic gravitational-wave detector, was operated for its solo observation from February 25 to March 10, 2020, and its first joint observation with the GEO 600 detector from April 7 to April 21, 2020 (O3GK). This study presents an overview of the input optics systems of the KAGRA detector, which consist of various optical systems, such as a laser source, its intensity and frequency stabilization systems, modulators, a Faraday isolator, mode-matching telescopes, and a high-power beam dump. These optics were successfully delivered to the KAGRA interferometer and operated stably during the observations. The laser frequency noise was observed to limit the detector sensitivity above a few kilohertz, whereas the laser intensity did not significantly limit the detector sensitivity.

Promotion of Specific Single-Transverse-Mode Beam Characteristics for GaSb-Based Narrow Ridge Waveguide Lasers via Customized Parameter Design

GaSb-based single-transverse-mode narrow ridge waveguide (RW) lasers with high power and simultaneous good beam quality have broad application prospects in the mid-infrared wavelength region. Yet its design and formation have not been investigated systematically, while the beam characteristics that affect their suitability for specific applications remain rarely analyzed and optimized. The present work addresses these issues by theoretically establishing a waveguide parameter domain that generalizes the overall possible combinations of ridge widths and etch depths that support single-transverse-mode operation for GaSb-based RW lasers. These results are applied to develop two distinct and representative waveguide designs derived from two proposed major optimization routes of model gain expansion and index-guiding enhancement. The designs were evaluated experimentally based on prototype 1-mm cavity-length RW lasers in the 1950 nm wavelength range, which were fabricated with waveguides having perpendicular ridge and smooth side-walls realized through optimized dry etching conditions. The model gain expanded RW laser design with a relatively shallow-etched (i.e., 1.55 upmum) and wide ridge (i.e., 7 upmum) yielded the highest single-transverse-mode power to date of 258 mW with a narrow lateral divergence angle of 11.1^circ full width at half maximum at 800 mA under room-temperature continuous-wave operation, which offers promising prospects in pumping and coupling applications. Meanwhile, the index-guiding enhanced RW laser design with a relatively deeply etched (i.e., 2.05 upmum) and narrow ridge (i.e., 4 upmum) provided a highly stable and nearly astigmatism-free fundamental mode emission with an excellent beam quality of M^2 factor around 1.5 over the entire operating current range, which is preferable for seeding external cavity applications and complex optical systems.

Feedback and compensation scheme to suppress the thermal effects from a dipole trap beam for the optical fiber microcavity.

Cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity QED) with neutral atoms is a promising platform for quantum information processing and optical fiber Fabry-Pérot microcavity with small mode volume is an important integrant for the large light-matter coupling strength. To transport cold atoms to the microcavity, a high-power optical dipole trap (ODT) beam perpendicular to the cavity axis is commonly used. However, the overlap between the ODT beam and the cavity mirrors causes thermal effects inducing a large cavity shift at the locking wavelength and a differential cavity shift at the probe wavelength which disturbs the cavity resonance. Here, we develop a feedback and compensation scheme to maintain the optical fiber microcavity resonant with the lasers at the locking and probe wavelengths simultaneously. The large cavity shift of 210 times the cavity linewidth, which makes the conventional PID scheme ineffective can be suppressed actively by a PIID feedback scheme with an additional I parameter. Differential cavity shift at the probe wavelength can be understood from the photothermal refraction and thermal expansion effects on the mirror coatings and be passively compensated by changing the frequency of the locking laser. A further normal-mode splitting measurement demonstrates the strong coupling between 85Rb atoms and cavity mode after the thermal effects are suppressed, which also confirms successful delivery and trapping of atoms into the optical cavity. This scheme can solve the thermal effects of the high-power ODT beam and will be helpful to cavity QED experimental research.

178-W picosecond green laser with active beam-pointing stabilization

Picosecond lasers with high average power and high beam quality have been widely used for precision processing and space exploration. In this study, we report a high-power picosecond green laser using a multistage Yb-doped rod-shaped photonic crystal fiber as an amplifier combined with a beam combination. The single amplification module achieves a 1,030 nm laser output of 146.8 W, and the maximum second harmonic generation (SHG) power is 92 W with a frequency conversion efficiency of 63.5%. The combined beam of the two SHGs resulted in a final output of 178 W with a repetition frequency of 24.07 MHz, pulse width of 50.1 ps, and beam quality factor of M2 = 1.16. Furthermore, an adaptive filter control method of a two-axis fast-steering mirror was applied to suppress the beam jitter to up to 45 Hz.

Structural characterization of layers fabricated by non-vacuum electron beam cladding of Ni-Cr-Si-B self-fluxing alloy with additions of niobium and boron

This paper is devoted to characterization of microstructure and phase constituion of coatings produced by non-vacuum electron beam cladding of Ni-Cr-Si-B self-fluxing alloy with Nb and amorphous B additions on mild steel substrates. The main purpose of this study was to form niobium diborides (NbB 2 ) belonging to AlB 2 structural family directly during the cladding process. For this reason we carried out a series of experiments with different ratios of (Nb+B (Am) ) and Ni-Cr-Si-B powders. When the starting material contained 15-40 wt.% of (Nb+B (Am) ) powder the NbC and (Cr, Fe) 23 C 6 carbides, as well as NbB 2 particles distributed in γ-(Ni-Fe) solid solution, were formed. When the starting powders contained 30-40 wt.% of (Nb+B (Am) ), NbB 2 formed shells around the NbC particles. The mechamism of shells formation, the ordering of γ-(Ni-Fe)-matrix and other structural peculiarities of the samples are discussed in the paper. Microhardness of the samples materials ranged from 450 to 950 HV 0.1 . • Ni-Cr-Si-B protective layers reinforced with NbB2 were fabricated on steel. • High-power electron beam accelerator was used to completely melt the alloy. • «NbB2 shell – NbC core» complex particles form at high concentrations of Nb and B. • Complex precipitates provide 2-fold improvement of Ni-Cr-Si-B-alloy microhardness. • The CuAuI type ordering of γ-(Ni-Fe)-matrix occurs in the cladding layer

Inhibition of parametric decay in heating microwave beams during fluctuations of the density profile in the edge island of Wendelstein 7-X

Experimental evidence of parametric decay instability (PDI) is observed in the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator, when high-power microwave beams cross a stationary magnetic island at the plasma edge. Here, trapping and build-up of upper hybrid waves within a density bump (measured within the island by alkali beam emission spectroscopy) is responsible for the reduction of the instability power threshold below the maximum gyrotron power. In this paper, we provide the first experimental evidence of the connection between the trapping mechanism in the island density bump and excitation of PDI-related signals. We show correlations of periodic crashes in the PDI-related signals with quasi-continuous fluctuations at the plasma edge, which, additionally, cause a flattening of the density profile in the island. We demonstrate that flattening of the experimental density profiles can suppress the trapping mechanism and inhibit the low-threshold PDI. PDI on the edge island could alter the power deposition profile and reduce the efficiency of the electron cyclotron resonance heating system, simultaneously posing a serious threat to the optimal operation of microwave-based diagnostics and plasma-facing components.

Performance of the correlated painting based on the mechanical structure of the anticorrelated painting scheme

The China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) accelerator consists of an 80 MeV ${H}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ Linac and a 1.6-GeV rapid cycling synchrotron (RCS). The painting scheme is one of the most important factors for the control of low beam loss at high beam power. In the painting injection of the CSNS/RCS, position scanning is used in both horizontal and vertical planes, and the anticorrelated painting is the design scheme. By using the anticorrelated painting, the beam power has successfully reached 50 kW. However, some problems have been found in the higher power beam commissioning, for instance, too large beam size after painting, nonuniform beam distribution, large transverse coupling effect, and so on, resulting in additional beam loss and making it difficult to satisfy the requirements of a high-power user mode. In order to solve these problems, flexibility in the CSNS design has been exploited to implement the correlated painting by using the rising current curve of the pulse power supply. The effectiveness of the new method has been verified in the simulation and beam commissioning, which can well control the full beam emittance and improve the beam distribution. By using the new method, the beam power on the target has successfully risen from 50 kW to the design value of 100 kW. Under the mechanical structure of the anticorrelated painting scheme where the position scanning is used in both horizontal and vertical planes, the correlated painting has been successfully achieved by using the rising current curve.