Sapphire Laser Facility Research Articles

Compact Thomson Scattering Source Based on a Mixed Injection Assisted Laser Wakefield Accelerator

In order to establish a compact all-optical Thomson scattering source, experimental studies were conducted on the 45 TW Ti: sapphire laser facility. By including a steel wafer, mixed gas, and plasma mirror into a double-exit jet, several mechanisms, such as shock-assisted ionization injection, ionization injection, and driving laser reflection, were integrated into one source. So, the source of complexity was remarkably reduced. Electron bunches with central energy fluctuating from 90 to 160 MeV can be produced. Plasma mirrors were used to reflect the driving laser. The scattering of the reflected laser on the electron bunches led to the generation of X-ray photons. Through comparing the X-ray spots under different experimental conditions, it is confirmed that the X-ray photons are generated by Thomson scattering. For further application, the energy spectra and source size of the Thomson scattering source were measured. The unfolded spectrum contains a large amount of low-energy photons besides a peak near 67 keV. Through importing the electron energy spectrum into the Monte Carlo simulation code, the different contributions of the photons with small and large emitting angles can be used to explain the origin of the unfolded spectrum. The maximum photon energy extended to about 500 keV. The total photon production was 107/pulse. The FWHM source size was about 12 μm.

Investigation of the temporal contrast evolution in a 10-PW-level Ti:sapphire laser facility.

We have theoretically and experimentally investigated the evolution of the temporal contrast in a 10-PW-level Ti:sapphire laser in the Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser Facility (SULF). The effects induced by the grism pair, spectral shaping filter, and increase in gain on the temporal contrast were investigated. First, it was found that the energy loss of clean seed pulses in the grism pair is a major factor in contrast degradation. Because of the low transmission efficiency of the grism pair (~10%), the temporal contrast is degraded by one order of magnitude. Second, the spectral shaping filter in the regenerative amplifier degrades the temporal contrast by increasing the intracavity loss. Finally, as the amplified spontaneous emission pedestal experiences gain more than the main pulse in Ti:sapphire amplifiers, particularly during saturated amplification, the temporal contrast will further deteriorate as the gain increases in multi-stage Ti:sapphire amplifiers. In addition, the effect on the temporal contrast induced by the extraction during pumping technique in large-aperture Ti:sapphire amplifiers has been considered. According to the investigations described above, the design of the SULF can be further improved. It is predicted that a temporal contrast of over 10-11 can be achieved at a peak power of 10 PW following the improvements. The investigations conducted in this study can provide guidelines for improving the temporal contrast in ultrahigh-peak-power Ti:sapphire lasers.

High conversion efficiency and small spot size of Kα X-ray generated from nano-foam Cu targets irradiated by femtosecond laser pulses

Developing high-quality X-ray source to diagnose shock wave and changing the material and structure features of the target were presented to enhance its absorbability to ultra-intense laser energy. Experiments were carried out on the XingGuang-III Ti: sapphire laser facility (2.1– 6 J, 30 fs) at Laser Fusion Research Center, China Academy of Engineering Physics. The minimum intensity was 1.6 × 1018 W/cm2 on a nano-foam Cu target with the thickness of 100 µm, the porosity of 70% and the density ratio of 30% solids of Cu. The emission of Kα X-rays from the target was measured using a single-photon counting CCD device. This nano-foam target had generated a Kα peak photon rate of 2.9 × 108 photons sr−1 s−1 and the maximum conversion efficiency (CE) value was 0.0084%. The average CE of the nano-foam Cu was 1.8 times greater than that of foil Cu target. The minimum spot size of the X-ray source was measured to be about 40 µm at full width at half maximum, smaller than 47–86 µm of the foil Cu target using 0.1-mm thick knife-edge method. The nano-foam structure showed the potential of enhancing the CE of the femtosecond laser for X-ray conversion.

High-order dispersion control of 10-petawatt Ti:sapphire laser facility.

A grism pair is utilized to control the high-order dispersion of the Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Lasers Facility, which is a large-scale project aimed at delivering 10-PW laser pulses. We briefly present the characteristics of the laser system and calculate the cumulative B-integral, which determines the nonlinear phase shift influence on material dispersion. Three parameters are selected, grism separation, angle of incidence and slant distance of grating compressor, to determine their optimal values through an iterative searching procedure. Both the numerical and experimental results confirm that the spectral phase distortion is controlled, and the recompressed pulse with a duration of 24 fs is obtained in the single-shot mode. The distributions and stabilities of the pulse duration at different positions of the recompressed beam are also investigated. This approach offers a new feasible solution for the high-order dispersion compensation of femtosecond petawatt laser systems.

Demonstration of a double chirped-pulse-amplification front-end system to improve the temporal contrast at a sub-petawatt laser

The temporal contrast is an important factor affecting the application of ultra-intense and ultra-short lasers. In this paper, we develop a double chirped-pulse-amplification (CPA) front-end system with an intermediate nonlinear temporal pulse filter to improve the temporal contrast at a sub-petawatt Ti:sapphire laser facility, i.e. the super intense laser for experiment on the extremes (SILEX-I). The temporal pulse filter employs cross-polarized wave (XPW) generation to suppress the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). The design output energy is 320 mJ for the front-end system. The experimental results show that the output energy of the double CPA system is 360 mJ. The ASE pedestal is suppressed significantly and the temporal contrast is improved by around three orders of magnitude.

Optimization of contrast ratio and focusable intensity in 700TW femtosecond Ti:sapphire laser facility

In this presentation, we report an improvement technique in our 700TW Ti:sapphire laser facility. In order to improve the contrast ratio, we designed a long cavity ring preamplifier. With careful alignment in each dimension of grating, we got a good focal spot after compressor. The size of focal spot was about 25μm with an f/10 off-axis-parabolic mirror (OAP). Using an f/3 OAP to focus the laser beam in experiment, we expect the laser intensity of 1021W/cm2 could be realized on the target.

Route to High Contrast and Focusable Intensity in PW-Class Femtosecond Ti:sapphire Laser Facility

Route to High Contrast and Focusable Intensity in PW-Class Femtosecond Ti:sapphire Laser Facility

A compact 355TW femtosecod Ti:sapphire laser facility and trend to high contrast ratio

A Ti:sapphire laser facility is established based on the chirped pulse amplification technology. For the first time we generate laser peak power of multi-100TW with three stages of amplifiers. In the final amplifier a 100J frequency-doubled Nd:glass laser is used as the pump source. To suppress the parasitic lasing (PL), we design the Ti:sapphire crystal with V groove cutting shape and use polymer thermoplastic cladding to absorb the reflection at the Ti:sapphhire interface. With the optimized alignment under 60J pump energy, laser peak power of 355TW is obtained at 31fs average pulse duration. The repetition rate is about 20min between two shots. Although the multi-100TW laser will enable us to open new applications on ultra-intense physics, the contrast ratio play more important role for the laser-matter interaction. To pursue a higher contrast ratio, new design on doubled CPA and ring regenerative amplifier are introduced. By further improving the amplification efficiency, our analysis shows that it should be possible to obtain peak power of high than 500TW with contrast ratio of about 1010.