Petawatt Laser Technology Research Articles

New IBS coatings boost performance of petawatt laser mirrors

SummarySimply put, the performance of a laser is just as high as the quality of its optics. Latest advances in petawatt laser technology have stimulated the development of large surface area, dielectrically coated mirrors to guide these demanding ultrashort pulse laser beams. We describe major achievements during the development and fabrication of ion beam sputtered 440 × 290 × 75 mm3 beam transport mirrors for the HAPLS laser at ELI Beam‐lines. A laser damage threshold greater than 0.9 J/cm2 was measured.

New IBS coatings boost performance of petawatt laser mirrors

AbstractSimply put, the performance of a laser is just as high as the quality of its optics. Latest advances in petawatt laser technology have stimulated the development of large surface area, dielectrically coated mirrors to guide these demanding ultrashort pulse laser beams. We describe major achievements during the development and fabrication of ion beam sputtered 440 × 290 × 75 mm3 beam transport mirrors for the HAPLS laser at ELI Beamlines. A laser damage threshold greater than 0.9 J/cm2 was measured.

Large area ion beam sputtered dielectric ultrafast mirrors for petawatt laser beamlines.

The latest advances in petawatt laser technology within the ELI Beamlines project have stimulated the development of large surface area dielectrically coated mirrors meeting all demanding requirements for guiding the compressed 30 J, 25 fs HAPLS laser beam at 10 Hz repetition rate and a center wavelength of 810 nm entirely in vacuum. We describe the production and evaluation of Ta2O5/HfO2/SiO2 ion beam sputtered coated (440 × 290 × 75) mm3 beam transport mirrors. No crazing was observed after thirty vacuum-air cycles. A laser induced damage threshold of 0.76 J/cm2 (fluence on mirror surface) was achieved and maintained at high shot rates.

Influence of Landau quantization and temperature degeneracy on drift acoustic waves in electron-positron-ion plasmas

Coupled linear and nonlinear drift ion acoustic waves are studied in a dense degenerate, inhomogeneous electron positron ion plasma with a quantized magnetic field. The influence of the magnetic field quantization parameter, temperature degeneracy, density inhomogeneity, and positron concentration is elaborated with appropriate plasma parameters on linear and nonlinear drift ion acoustic wave propagation. The illustrations show that both linear and nonlinear wave characteristics are modified significantly by these effects. This investigation can be supportive to understand the planetary interiors, plasmonics, short pulsed petawatt laser technology, and the white dwarf stars.

Effect of temperature degeneracy and Landau quantization on drift solitary waves and double layers

The linear and nonlinear drift ion acoustic waves have been investigated in an inhomogeneous, magnetized, dense degenerate, and quantized magnetic field plasma. The linear drift ion acoustic wave propagation along with the nonlinear structures like double layers and solitary waves has been found to be strongly dependent on the drift speed, magnetic field quantization parameter β, and the temperature degeneracy. The graphical illustrations show that the frequency of linear waves and the amplitude of the solitary waves increase with the increase in temperature degeneracy and Landau quantization effect, while the amplitude of the double layers decreases with the increase in η and T. The relevance of the present study is pointed out in the plasma environment of fast ignition inertial confinement fusion, the white dwarf stars, and short pulsed petawatt laser technology.

Quasi-monoenergetic laser-plasma acceleration of electrons to 2 GeV

Laser-plasma accelerators of only a centimetre’s length have produced nearly monoenergetic electron bunches with energy as high as 1 GeV. Scaling these compact accelerators to multi-gigaelectronvolt energy would open the prospect of building X-ray free-electron lasers and linear colliders hundreds of times smaller than conventional facilities, but the 1 GeV barrier has so far proven insurmountable. Here, by applying new petawatt laser technology, we produce electron bunches with a spectrum prominently peaked at 2 GeV with only a few per cent energy spread and unprecedented sub-milliradian divergence. Petawatt pulses inject ambient plasma electrons into the laser-driven accelerator at much lower density than was previously possible, thereby overcoming the principal physical barriers to multi-gigaelectronvolt acceleration: dephasing between laser-driven wake and accelerating electrons and laser pulse erosion. Simulations indicate that with improvements in the laser-pulse focus quality, acceleration to nearly 10 GeV should be possible with the available pulse energy.

Gorizonty petavattnykh lazernykh kompleksov

Gorizonty petavattnykh lazernykh kompleksov