Large-scale Laser Research Articles

StarDriver: Recent results on beam smoothing and LPI mitigation

StarDriver was recently proposed as a highly flexible laser driver for inertial confinement fusion and high energy density physics. It envisions a laser drive consisting of very many beams at an aperture and energy where the optical technology is well-developed, used in concert to create a large scale laser driver system. In this paper we describe a StarDriver-class laser with 5120 physical beamlets disposed about the target chamber in 80 evenly spaced ports, each port containing 64 beamlets, each beamlet having about ∼1.5THz of 2D SSD bandwidth and suitable phase plates, an aperture of ∼65mm, an energy of 80J, and frequency-converted to ∼351nm.many beamlets at an aperture where optical technology is well-developed, and each beamlet has energy ∼100J in a several times diffraction limited beam. The ensemble of beamlets has frequency bandwidth 2%-10%, thereby providing significant control of both hydrodynamic and laser-plasma instabilities The drive at the target is ∼400kJ, has a well-behaved low L-mode spectrum, and smooths very rapidly, reaching an asymptotic smoothness of <1% in less than Ins.

Experimental synchrony of semiconductor lasers in coupled networks.

The emission and synchronization of mutually-coupled semiconductor lasers with short cavities has been already recorded, with transversely unstable solutions existing within the chaotic synchronization manifold. Noise and laser-mismatch induced instabilities cause short de-synchronization events within the overall generalized synchronization, influencing the pragmatism of using these signals in secure data exchange applications. However, such operation can be functional for user authentication and sensing applications by assessing a time-averaged performance of synchrony. Until now, this has not been examined either in large-scale laser network configurations or in large transmission coupling paths, as real network implementations oblige. Here we present the first implementation of a fully-coupled fiber network with up to 16 semiconductor lasers, independently controlled and coupled through long interacting cavities. High level of consistent global or cluster synchrony via chaotic signals is demonstrated among all devices of the same origin and under appropriate operation. Devices that are not identical fail to synchronize at any condition, when coupled to the network. Under multiplexed operation, groups of lasers that emit at spectral distances as low as 50pm are shown to preserve intra-cluster synchronization when transmitted in the same fiber-optic channel, despite their large bandwidth of emitted signals.

Holographic femtosecond laser manipulation for advanced material processing

Abstract Parallel femtosecond laser processing using a computer-generated hologram displayed on a spatial light modulator, known as holographic femtosecond laser processing, provides the advantages of high throughput and high-energy use efficiency. Therefore, it has been widely used in many applications, including laser material processing, two-photon polymerization, two-photon microscopy, and optical manipulation of biological cells. In this paper, we review the development of holographic femtosecond laser processing over the past few years from the perspective of wavefront and polarization modulation. In particular, line-shaped and vector-wave femtosecond laser processing are addressed. These beam-shaping techniques are useful for performing large-area machining in laser cutting, peeling, and grooving of materials and for high-speed fabrication of the complex nanostructures that are applied to material-surface texturing to control tribological properties, wettability, reflectance, and retardance. Furthermore, issues related to the nonuniformity of diffraction light intensity in optical reconstruction and wavelength dispersion from a computer-generated hologram are addressed. As a result, large-scale holographic femtosecond laser processing over 1000 diffraction spots was successfully demonstrated on a glass sample.

Direct Femtosecond Laser Writing of Optical Nanoresonators

A novel method for single-step, lithography-free, and large-scale laser writing of arrays of metallic (Au) and semiconductor (Si) nanoparticles (nanoresonators) has been developed. Changing energy of femtosecond laser pulses and film thickness it is possible to vary diameter of the nanoparticles, while the distance between them can be varied by laser scanning parameters. This method has an advantage over the most previously demonstrated methods in its simplicity and versatility, while the quality of the structures is good enough for many applications.

Density and temperature characterization of long-scale length, near-critical density controlled plasma produced from ultra-low density plastic foam.

The ability to produce long-scale length (i.e. millimeter scale-length), homogeneous plasmas is of interest in studying a wide range of fundamental plasma processes. We present here a validated experimental platform to create and diagnose uniform plasmas with a density close or above the critical density. The target consists of a polyimide tube filled with an ultra low-density plastic foam where it was heated by x-rays, produced by a long pulse laser irradiating a copper foil placed at one end of the tube. The density and temperature of the ionized foam was retrieved by using x-ray radiography and proton radiography was used to verify the uniformity of the plasma. Plasma temperatures of 5–10 eV and densities around 1021 cm−3 are measured. This well-characterized platform of uniform density and temperature plasma is of interest for experiments using large-scale laser platforms conducting High Energy Density Physics investigations.

StarDriver: Recent Results on Beam Smoothing and 2ωpe Mitigation

StarDriver was recently proposed as a highly flexible laser driver for inertial confinement fusion and high energy density physics. It envisions a laser drive consisting of very many beams at an aperture and energy where the optical technology is well-developed, used in concert to create a large scale laser driver system. In this paper we describe a StarDriver–class laser with 5120 physical beamlets disposed about the target chamber in 80 evenly spaced ports, each port containing 64 beamlets, each beamlet having about ~1.5 THz of 2D SSD bandwidth and suitable phase plates, an aperture of ~65 mm, an energy of 80 J, and frequency-converted to ~351 nm. StarDriver has many beamlets at an aperture where optical technology is well-developed, and each beamlet has energy ~100 J in a several times diffraction limited beam. The ensemble of beamlets has frequency bandwidth 2%-10%, thereby providing significant control of both hydrodynamic and laser-plasma instabilities The drive at the target is ~400 kJ, has a well-behaved low L-mode spectrum, and smooth’s very rapidly, reaching an asymptotic smoothness of <1% in less than 1 ns. We also review recent results showing that the 2ωpe instability can be significantly reduced by 20 THz bandwidth.

Large Scale Laser Crystallization of Solution-based Alumina-doped Zinc Oxide (AZO) Nanoinks for Highly Transparent Conductive Electrode.

A new method combining aqueous solution printing with UV Laser crystallization (UVLC) and post annealing is developed to deposit highly transparent and conductive Aluminum doped Zinc Oxide (AZO) films. This technique is able to rapidly produce large area AZO films with better structural and optoelectronic properties than most high vacuum deposition, suggesting a potential large-scale manufacturing technique. The optoelectronic performance improvement attributes to UVLC and forming gas annealing (FMG) induced grain boundary density decrease and electron traps passivation at grain boundaries. The physical model and computational simulation developed in this work could be applied to thermal treatment of many other metal oxide films.

OPCPA front end and contrast optimization for the OMEGA EP kilojoule, picosecond laser

OMEGA EP is a large-scale laser system that combines optical parametric amplification and solid-state laser amplification on two beamlines to deliver high-intensity, high-energy optical pulses. The temporal contrast of the output pulse is limited by the front-end parametric fluorescence and other features that are specific to parametric amplification. The impact of the two-crystal parametric preamplifier, pump-intensity noise, and pump-signal timing is experimentally studied. The implementation of a parametric amplifier pumped by a short pump pulse before stretching, further amplification, and recompression to enhance the temporal contrast of the high-energy short pulse is described.

Research on the fiber dispersion and compensation in large-scale high-resolution broadband frequency-modulated continuous wave laser measurement system

The influence of a fiber dispersion calibration interferometer on the measurement results for a large-scale high-resolution broadband frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) measurement system was studied. A model was constructed to simulate the influences of fiber dispersion on the measurements when using a frequency sampling method that corrects the tuning nonlinearity. The results indicated that a broadband external cavity tunable laser, in comparison with a semiconductor laser, causes linear variations in the measurement results because of the effect of the fiber dispersion in the calibration interference path for large-scale high-resolution measurements, and these variations decreased the resolution of the measurements. A method that combines chirp slope calibration and phase compensation to reduce the effects of the fiber dispersion was proposed. A gauge block with a height difference of 200 μ m at a distance of 2.43 m was measured during the experiments. Before calibrating the fiber dispersion, the frequency spectrum showed false peaks, and it was difficult to distinguish the peaks of the targets. After compensating for the dispersion, the peaks of the targets could be clearly distinguished, and a height difference of 199.6 μ m was measured. Using this model and the method to compensate for the dispersion will provide a reference for large-scale high-resolution broadband FMCW laser measurements.

Cost–benefit analysis for commissioning decisions in GEO 600

Gravitational wave (GW) interferometers are complex instruments, requiring years of commissioning to achieve the required sensitivities for the detection of GWs, of order ≲10−21 in dimensionless detector strain, in the tens of Hz to several kHz frequency band. Investigations carried out by the GEO 600 detector characterization group have shown that detector characterization techniques are useful when planning for commissioning work. At the time of writing, GEO 600 is the only large scale laser interferometer currently in operation running with a high duty factor, , limited chiefly by the time spent commissioning the detector. The number of observable GW sources scales as the product of the volume of space to which the detector is sensitive and the observation time, so the goal of commissioning is to improve the detector sensitivity with the least possible detector down-time. We demonstrate a method for increasing the number of sources observable by such a detector, by assessing the severity of non-astrophysical noise contaminations to efficiently guide commissioning. This method will be particularly useful in the early stages and during the initial science runs of the aLIGO and adVirgo detectors, as they are brought up to design performance.

Feasible Application Area Study for Linear Laser Cutting in Paper Making Processes

Traditional industry sectors, like paper making industry, tend to stay within well-known technology rather than going forward towards promising, but still quite new technical solutions and applications. This study analyses the feasibility of the laser cutting in large-scale industrial paper making processes. Aim was to reveal development and process related challenges and improvement potential in paper making processes by utilizing laser technology.This study has been carried out, because there still seems to be only few large-scale industrial laser processing applications in paper converting processes worldwide, even in the beginning of 2010's. Because of this, the small-scale use of lasers in paper material manufacturing industry is related to a shortage of well-known and widely available published research articles and published measurement data (e.g. actual achieved cut speeds with high quality cut edges, set-up times and so on). It was concluded that laser cutting has strong potential in industrial applications for paper making industries. This potential includes quality improvements and a competitive advantage for paper machine manufacturers and industry. The innovations have also added potential, when developing new paper products. An example of these kinds of products are ones with printed intelligence, which could be a new business opportunity for the paper industries all around the world.

IL LASER: FULCRO DI GRANDI INFRASTRUTTURE DI RICERCA

An important characteristic of the laser sources consists in the ability to generate short and intense radiation pulses. This feature has stimulated the development of large-scale laser infrastructures mainly dedicated to nuclear fusion. This paper presents the realization of a new research infrastructure “Extreme Light Infrastructure” (ELI) which has conceptually different purposes compared to the others. The main feature consists essentially in the production of an extremely high peak power by using pulses of the duration of a few femtoseconds and of high energy. Focusing these pulses over an area of the size of the laser wavelength one can achieve extremely high intensities, which will enable new research in particle physics, gravitational physics, nonlinear field theory, physics of high pressures, astrophysics and cosmology.

Real-time and sub-wavelength ultrafast coherent diffraction imaging in the extreme ultraviolet.

Coherent Diffraction Imaging is a technique to study matter with nanometer-scale spatial resolution based on coherent illumination of the sample with hard X-ray, soft X-ray or extreme ultraviolet light delivered from synchrotrons or more recently X-ray Free-Electron Lasers. This robust technique simultaneously allows quantitative amplitude and phase contrast imaging. Laser-driven high harmonic generation XUV-sources allow table-top realizations. However, the low conversion efficiency of lab-based sources imposes either a large scale laser system or long exposure times, preventing many applications. Here we present a lensless imaging experiment combining a high numerical aperture (NA = 0.8) setup with a high average power fibre laser driven high harmonic source. The high flux and narrow-band harmonic line at 33.2 nm enables either sub-wavelength spatial resolution close to the Abbe limit (Δr = 0.8λ) for long exposure time, or sub-70 nm imaging in less than one second. The unprecedented high spatial resolution, compactness of the setup together with the real-time capability paves the way for a plethora of applications in fundamental and life sciences.

Design and evaluation of a large-scale autostereoscopic multi-view laser display for outdoor applications.

State-of-the-art autostereoscopic displays often do not comply with mandatory requirements for outdoor use, because of their limitations in size, luminance, number of 3D viewing zones, and maximum 3D viewing distances. In this paper we propose a concept for a modular autostereoscopic multi-view laser display with sunlight readable luminance, theoretically up to several thousand 3D viewing zones, and maximum 3D viewing distances of up to 70 meters. Each picture element contains three laser diodes, a cylindrical microlens, as well as a MEMS mirror, which deflects the collimated light beams to the left and right eyes of multiple viewers in a time-multiplexed manner. To demonstrate the principle, we have developed a prototype display with 5 x 3 picture elements.

Study of Air Temperature Correction for Optical Path Based on Large-Scale Laser Comparator

Large-scale comparators of over 30m range are traceable devices of dimensional measurement in advance large-scale manufacture domain. High precision large-scale laser comparator is an open air laser interferometric measurement device, mainly made up of length measurement system, guiding rail system and control system. The length measurement system use laser interference system to get displacements, the main source of the measurement uncertainty of displacements comes from the air temperature measurement uncertainty. This paper put forward a novel air temperature compensation method by weighting-section compensation in the large-scale laser comparator optical path. The method can improve the length measurement uncertainty of large-scale laser comparator to 2×10-8 level with changing the hardware of air temperature measurement system.

PROSPECTS FOR JOINT GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE AND ELECTROMAGNETIC OBSERVATIONS OF NEUTRON-STAR-BLACK-HOLE COALESCING BINARIES

Coalescing neutron-star-black-hole (NS-BH) binaries are a promising source of gravitational-wave (GW) signals detectable with large-scale laser interferometers such as Advanced LIGO and Virgo. They are also one of the main short gamma-ray burst (SGRB) progenitor candidates. If the BH tidally disrupts its companion, an SGRB may be ignited when a sufficiently massive accretion disk forms around the remnant BH. Detecting an NS-BH coalescence both in the GW and electromagnetic (EM) spectrum offers a wealth of information about the nature of the source. How much can actually be inferred from a joint detection is unclear, however, as a mass/spin degeneracy may reduce the GW measurement accuracy. To shed light on this problem and on the potential of joint EM+GW observations, we here combine recent semi-analytical predictions for the remnant disk mass with estimates of the parameter-space portion that is selected by a GW detection. We identify cases in which an SGRB ignition is supported, others in which it can be excluded, and finally others in which the outcome depends on the chosen model for the currently unknown NS equation of state. We pinpoint a range of systems that would allow us to place lower bounds on the equation of state stiffness if both the GW emission and its EM counterpart are observed. The methods we develop can broaden the scope of existing GW detection and parameter-estimation algorithms and could allow us to disregard about half of the templates in an NS-BH search following an SGRB trigger, increasing its speed and sensitivity.

大規模3次元レーザ計測とデジタルヒューマンモデルを活用したas-built環境内の基本歩行シミュレーション技術の開発

大規模3次元レーザ計測とデジタルヒューマンモデルを活用したas-built環境内の基本歩行シミュレーション技術の開発

Photometric study of single-shot energy-dispersive x-ray diffraction at a laser plasma facility

The low repetition rates and possible shot-to-shot variations in laser-plasma studies place a high value on single-shot diagnostics. For example, white-beam scattering methods based on broadband backlighter x-ray sources are used to determine changes in the structure of laser-shocked crystalline materials by the evolution of coincidences of reciprocal lattice vectors and kinematically-allowed momentum transfers. Here, we demonstrate that white-beam techniques can be extended to strongly-disordered dense plasma and warm dense matter (WDM) systems where reciprocal space is only weakly structured and spectroscopic detection is consequently needed to determine the static structure factor and thus the ion-ion radial distribution function. Specifically, we report a photometric study of energy-dispersive diffraction (ED-XRD) for structural measurement of high energy density systems at large-scale laser facilities such as OMEGA and the National Ignition Facility. We find that structural information can be obtained in single-shot ED-XRD experiments using established backlighter and spectrometer technologies.

大型激光装置精密同步系统总体技术研究

大型激光装置精密同步系统总体技术研究

Integrated modeling and realizing of the 2 × 2 array-optical assembly

The development of array technique is a crucial issue for large-scale laser system, and the most important factor effecting optical performance of array system is exacting alignment tolerances, which are always requited to be less than 0.25μrad and λ/13. An integrated model setup for far-field pattern distribution of a 2×2 array-optical system is described, which simulates the combining results under the influence of external vibration in PID control mode. In this model, the ANSYS and MATLAB/SIMULINK are included to respectively perform structure and control analysis. Based on the integrated model analysis, a 2×2 array-optical prototype is designed and fabricated, the simulation and experimental results show that the array-mirror assembly is capable of maintaining high-accuracy tiling stability.