Terawatt Laser System Research Articles

Demonstration of proton acceleration using laser-driven EMP field in dispersion-free slow wave tube

We demonstrate the laser-driven post-acceleration experiment, utilizing a miniature slow-wave structure. Experiments on a terawatt laser system showed a significant increase in proton cutoff energy, highlighting the technique's potential, especially for high-power laser systems. The slow-wave structure consists of a helix and a shielded metallic shell covered on the outside. The transmission properties of electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) generated by laser–foil interactions along the structure are studied. Through an electromagnetic field perspective, we derived dispersion relations for helices with and without metallic shield. Our findings, supported by theory, simulations, and experiments, demonstrate the structure's ability to transmit high-frequency EMPs with limited dispersion.

Generation and Application of X−ray Pulses on a Terawatt Laser System

Currently, the Kurchatov Laser−Synchrotron Complex is conducting research on the interaction of powerful femtosecond laser radiation with matter. The purpose of these studies is to develop new techniques and approaches for the characterization of high−temperature plasma, X−rays and particle acceleration, which can be the basis for the work planned within the framework of the synchrotron−neutron project. Laser−driven X−ray production, electron acceleration, nuclear fusion, ultrafast structural dynamics of nanoparticles in intense laser fields remains an active research topic, aimed at generating advanced controllable sources.

Kinetic simulation study of magnetized collisionless shock formation on a terawatt laser system

Perpendicular, magnetized, collisionless shocks in hydrogen and neon plasmas are studied with 2D particle-in-cell simulations for parameters accessible to experiments on OMEGA EP [Maywar et al., J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 112, 032007 (2008)]. The simulations are performed with realistic ion-electron mass ratios by which the relative importance of different micro-instabilities can be accurately captured. The dispersion relation of the modified two-stream instability (MTSI), the main dissipation mechanism for these shocks, is used to find suitable parameters for upcoming experiments. Simulations show that magnetized collisionless shocks can be readily formed within a few tenths of an ion gyro-period in both hydrogen and neon gases, with a background magnetic field of 50 T, achievable using the magneto-inertial fusion electrical discharge system [Barnak et al., Rev. Sci. Instrum. 89, 033501 (2018)]. A portion of the ions are reflected to the upstream region and accelerated in both shock normal and tangential directions, indicating the formation of a supercritical shock. Shock front reformation is seen in longer time 1D simulations. The results show that the formation time and width of these shocks are determined by MTSI.

Hybrid x-ray laser-plasma/laser-synchrotron facility for pump-probe studies of the extreme state of matter at NRC "Kurchatov Institute".

We developed a hybrid optical pump-x-ray probe facility based on the "Kurchatov's synchrotron radiation source" and terawatt (TW) femtosecond laser. The bright x-ray photon source is based on either synchrotron radiation [up to 6 × 1014 photons/(s mm2 mrad2 0.1% bandwidth)] or laser-plasma generators (up to 108 photons/sr/pulse). The terawatt (TW) femtosecond laser pulse initiated phase transitions and a non-stationary "extreme" state of matter, while the delayed x-ray pulse acts as a probe. The synchronization between synchrotron radiation and laser pulses is achieved at 60.3MHz using an intelligent field-programmable gate array-based phased locked loop. The timing jitter of the system is less than 30ps. In laser-plasma sources, the x-ray and laser pulses are automatically synchronized because they are produced by using the same laser source (TW laser system). We have reached an x-ray yield of about 106 photons/sr/pulse with 6-mJ sub-ps laser pulses and using helium as a local gas medium. Under vacuum conditions, the laser energy increase up to 40 mJ leads to the enhancement of the x-ray yield of up to 108 photons/sr/pulse. The developed hybrid facility paves the way for a new class of time-resolved x-ray optical pump-probe experiments in the time interval from femtoseconds to microseconds and the energy spectrum from 3 to 30 keV.

MeV photoelectron spectrometer for ultraintense laser interactions with atoms and molecules.

Traditional laser-matter spectroscopy techniques fail to accurately analyze photoelectrons and ions from ultrahigh intensity studies with terawatt and petawatt laser systems. We present a magnetic deflection, photoelectron spectrometer for ultrahigh intensity laser interactions with atoms and molecules in the single atom/molecule limit. Spectrometer fabrication and calibration, and noise background are presented as well as example photoelectron spectra for argon and chloromethane over an energy range from 20 keV to 2 MeV.

Gaussian curvature and stigmatic imaging relations for the design of an unobscured reflective relay

We derive the relationship between Coddington's equations and the Gaussian curvature for a stigmatic reflective imaging system. This relationship allows parameterizing off-axis conic optical systems using traditional first-order optics by considering the effective curvature at the center of the off-axis sections. Specifically, we demonstrate parameterizing the system requirements of a 2× achromatic image relay for a terawatt laser system. This system required both collimation (far-field) and pupil imaging (near-field) simultaneously. Long working distances and specific spatial constraints limited the available layout options for the imaging components. By parameterizing these system requirements and packaging constraints, the final specifications could be quickly iterated, while allowing for flexibility in the layout of the system during a multi-year conceptual period.

New adaptive optics control strategy for petawatt-class laser chains

A new generation of ultra-high intensity femtosecond petawatt- and above-class lasers requires new approaches to wavefront corrections. New challenges for adaptive optics consist in overcoming the constraints of potentially bigger diameters, larger amplitude aberrations, faster optics, higher risk of damaging optical components and faster and easier maintenance. Here we present a new technology of a mechanical deformable mirror, which has a large stroke, high temporal stability, low hysteresis, no print-through effect, easy, safe and fast maintenance and an operating frequency up to 10 Hz. We propose the full correction of the final focal spot in the target chamber by a combination of a standard adaptive optics system, a simple focal plane camera and a phase retrieval correction process. We test the reliability of the correction system in terms of intensity variation and wavefront stability. We further verify correction robustness of the method on a large spectral bandwidth and finally perform a focal spot correction on a terawatt laser system in both low and high-power regimes.

10 mJ femtosecond Ti: Sapphire regenerative amplifier with large mode size

With advent of chirped-pulse amplification, the peak power of femtosecond laser pulse was reached to petawatt (PW) or hundreds of terawatt (TW). Many progresses of high-field physics and ultrafast dynamics in matter are achieved using TW or PW laser. Pre-amplifier is an exponential growth amplifier which is also a bridge between oscillator and power amplifier. The best choice of pre-amplifier is amplification in regenerative cavity, due to its high stability and beam quality. The quality of pre-amplified laser pulse is significant to efficiency and beam quality of the successive power amplifier. High energy pre-amplifier with high beam quality will reduce the requirement of pump laser in final power amplifier. But typical regenerative amplifier only support low output energy of few millijoule. Higher energy from only one regenerative amplifier is crucial to whole laser system. High energy regenerative amplifier can be achieved by increasing the size of TEM00 in cavity. A new femtosecond Ti:sapphire regenerative amplifier with large mode size was demonstrated in this letter. The regenerative cavity is designed as stable linear resonator in which end mirrors are planar, the diameter of beam waist in Ti:sapphire crystal is larger than 2 mm, which can support high energy pulse amplified in cavity. By matching the focal spot of pump laser with the size of mode and optimization of cavity, the output laser energy up to 17.4 mJ was achieved under the pump energy of 60 mJ at repetition rate of 10 Hz, which corresponds to the efficiency of 29%. The amplified laser pulse from regenerative amplifier was compressed in a grating-pair compressor. By carefully alignment of incident angle and distance between the two gratings of compressor, the shortest pulses duration of 40.6 fs and energy of 13.9 mJ are obtained, which is a little bit longer than Fourier-transform limit based on spectrum of laser. The dispersion in the CPA laser system was also analyzed, after optimization of compressor, there are still high order dispersions uncompensated, which results in the duration of compressed pulses longer than Fourier-transform limit. Based on this large mode size regenerative amplifier, peak power of 1.9 TW laser pulses which compressed pulse energy of 81.4 mJ in 43 fs were also further realized by following only one stage of multipass amplifier. The beam quality (M2) was measured to be 1.6 and 1.5 in X and Y directions respectively, and the energy stability is 2.15% (rms). The results show that this large mode size regenerative amplifier is an ideal choice of pre-amplifier in TW laser system.

Laser Wakefield Acceleration Using Mid-Infrared Laser Pulses**Supported by the National Basic Research Program of China under Grant Nos 2013CBA01504, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos 11475260, 11374209 and 11375265.

We study a laser wakefield acceleration driven by mid-infrared (mid-IR) laser pulses through two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. Since a mid-IR laser pulse can deliver a larger ponderomotive force as compared with the usual 0.8 μm wavelength laser pulse, it is found that electron self-injection into the wake wave occurs at an earlier time, the plasma density threshold for injection becomes lower, and the electron beam charge is substantially enhanced. Meanwhile, our study also shows that quasimonoenergetic electron beams with a narrow energy-spread can be generated by using mid-IR laser pulses. Such a mid-IR laser pulse can provide a feasible method for obtaining a high quality and high charge electron beam. Therefore, the current efforts on constructing mid-IR terawatt laser systems can greatly benefit the laser wakefield acceleration research.

Comparative study on the temporal contrast of femtosecond mode-locked laser oscillators.

We have investigated the temporal intensity contrast characteristics from a broad range of mode-locked short-pulse oscillators used for seeding high-power terawatt and petawatt-class laser systems. Saturable absorber (SESAM), Kerr lens (KLM), nonlinear polarization evolution (NPE) in optical fibers and synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillator (OPO) mode-locked sources have been measured using a third-order autocorrelator with up to 1010 dynamic range. We restricted the temporal characterization to features <30 ps about the laser pulse that reflect fundamental mode-locking processes. We find additional nonlinear terms and residual higher-order dispersion limits the performance of KLM and NPE sources up to the 105 contrast level, while >108 contrast was observed from the SESAM and OPO laser pulse trains.

Parametric study of transport beam lines for electron beams accelerated by laser-plasma interaction

In the last decade, laser-plasma acceleration of high-energy electrons has attracted strong attention in different fields. Electrons with maximum energies in the GeV range can be laser-accelerated within a few cm using multi-hundreds terawatt (TW) lasers, yielding to very high beam currents at the source (electron bunches with up to tens-hundreds of pC in a few fs). While initially the challenge was to increase the maximum achievable electron energy, today strong effort is put in the control and usability of these laser-generated beams that still lack of some features in order to be used for applications where currently conventional, radio-frequency (RF) based, electron beam lines represent the most common and efficient solution. Several improvements have been suggested for this purpose, some of them acting directly on the plasma source, some using beam shaping tools located downstream. Concerning the latter, several studies have suggested the use of conventional accelerator magnetic devices (such as quadrupoles and solenoids) as an easy implementable solution when the laser-plasma accelerated beam requires optimization. In this paper, we report on a parametric study related to the transport of electron beams accelerated by laser-plasma interaction, using conventional accelerator elements and tools. We focus on both, high energy electron beams in the GeV range, as produced on petawatt (PW) class laser systems, and on lower energy electron beams in the hundreds of MeV range, as nowadays routinely obtained on commercially available multi-hundred TW laser systems. For both scenarios, our study allows understanding what are the crucial parameters that enable laser-plasma accelerators to compete with conventional ones and allow for a beam transport. We show that suitable working points require a tradeoff-combination between low beam divergence and narrow energy spread.

Non-scanning systems for far-infrared radiation detection from laser-induced plasmas

With the development of ultraintense terawatt (TW) and petawatt (PW) laser systems, powerful terahertz (THz) radiation from laser–plasma interactions has been reported. Plasma-based THz systems, which are usually operated at extremely low repetition rates, call for single-shot diagnostics. In this paper, various state-of-the-art single-shot detection methods are introduced or designed for measurements and applications involved in high-power plasma-based THz sciences.

Measurement of the target current by inductive probe during laser interaction on terawatt laser system PALS.

Measurements of the return-current flowing through a solid target irradiated with the sub-nanosecond kJ-class Prague Asterix Laser System is reported. A new inductive target probe was developed which allows us measuring the target current derivative in a kA/ns range. The dependences of the target current on the laser pulse energy for cooper, graphite, and polyethylene targets are reported. The experiment shows that the target current is proportional to the deposited laser energy and is strongly affected by the shot-to-shot fluctuations. The corresponding maximum target charge exceeded a value of 10 μC. A return-current dependence of the electromagnetic pulse produced by the laser-target interaction is presented.

The behavior of W, Be and C layers in interaction with plasma produced by terawatt laser beam pulses

Energy production using fusion plasma is an expected goal and a research domain very well explored at the international level. In present the most reliable method to produce fusion nuclear reactions is those of the hot plasma, magnetically confined in a tokamak type reactor. An important problem still unresolved is the composition of the reactor main chamber first-wall; using materials to resist to the high energy fluxes of 10–100 MW/m2. For the wall protection was proposed to use tungsten, beryllium and carbon.The behavior of the 250–500 nm thick W, Be and C layers prepared by thermionic vacuum arc method in interaction with the terawatt laser plasma produced in the gaseous environment, in order to simulate the plasma-wall phenomena appearing during fusion device operation, was studied. A terawatt laser system (TEWALAS), pulse duration: 70 fs, the pulse energy: 6 mJ and the repetition rate: 10 Hz was used. The 1014 W/cm2 density power laser beam was focused at 300 μm above the W, Be and C coatings in air atmosphere. For the coatings, characterizations before and after exposure were made using atomic force microscopy (AFM), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Raman spectroscopy.

Few-cycle optical probe-pulse for investigation of relativistic laser-plasma interactions

The development of a few-cycle optical probe-pulse for the investigation of laser-plasma interactions driven by a Ti:sapphire, 30 Terawatt (TW) laser system is described. The probe is seeded by a fraction of the driving laser's energy and is spectrally broadened via self-phase modulation in a hollow core fiber filled with a rare gas, then temporally compressed to a few optical cycles via chirped mirrors. Shadowgrams of the laser-driven plasma wave created in relativistic electron acceleration experiments are presented with few-fs temporal resolution, which is shown to be independent of post-interaction spectral filtering of the probe-beam.

Intense terahertz generation in two-color laser filamentation: energy scaling with terawatt laser systems

We investigate high-power terahertz (THz) generation in two-color laser filamentation using terawatt (TW) lasers including a 0.5 TW, 1 kHz system, as well as 2 and 30 TW systems both operating at 10 Hz. With these lasers, we study the macroscopic effect in filamentation that governs THz output energy yields and radiation profiles in the far field. We also characterize the radiation spectra at a broad range of frequencies covering radio–micro-waves to infrared frequencies. In particular, our 1 kHz THz source can provide high-energy (>1 μJ), high average power (>1 mW), intense (>1 MV cm−1) and broadband (0.01–60 THz) THz radiation via two-color filamentation in air. Based on our scaling law, an ∼30 TW laser can produce >0.1 mJ of THz radiation with multi-gigawatt peak power in ∼1.5 m long filamentation.

Terawatt laser system irradiation of carbon/tungsten bilayers

AbstractUsing the original thermionic vacuum arc method (TVA), carbon films with the thickness of about 2500 nm were coated on top of 200 nm tungsten films deposited on fine grain graphite substrates. The carbon/tungsten bilayers were irradiated using a terawatt laser system (TEWALAS), 360 ps and 100 fs pulse duration, 110–150 mJ pulse energy. The analysis of the selected area electron diffraction (SAED) pattern allowed the identification of rhomboedral structures corresponding to diamond. The Raman scattering measurements were also performed on the produced craters and the specific peak at 1330 cm−1 corresponding to diamond was observed. The CC sp3 bonding content increased to 39.4% in the irradiated region compared to 30.8% in the “as deposited” zone, as shown by XPS. The craters produced by the laser irradiation were morphologically studied using optical imaging and scanning electron microscopy.

TW Laser system for Thomson scattering X-ray light source at Tsinghua University

A TW (Tera Watt) laser system based on Ti:sapphire mainly for the Tsinghua Thomson scattering X-ray light source (TTX) is being built. Both UV (ultraviolet) laser pulse for driving the photocathode radio-frequency (RF) gun and the IR (infrared) laser pulse as the electron-beam-scattered-light are provided by the system. Efforts have also been made in laser pulse shaping and laser beam transport to optimize the high-brightness electron beam production by the photocathode RF gun.

Ultrabroadband conical emission generated from the ultraviolet up to the far-infrared during the optical filamentation in air

Ultraviolet and infrared conical emissions were observed during the filamentation in air of powerful femtosecond laser pulses produced by a portable terawatt laser system. The broadband spectrum was measured from 200 nm up to 14 microm and covered the complete optical transmission window of the atmosphere. The angularly resolved spectrum showed some X-wave structure across the frequency range analyzed. However, we demonstrated that the strong conical emission observed in the mid- and far-infrared is mainly owing to the four-wave mixing between the pump pulse and its blueshifted conical emission.

Design and performance characteristics of an electromagnetic interference shielded enclosure for high voltage Pockels cell switching system

An electro-magnetic interference noise shielding enclosure for Pockels cells for high speed synchronized switching has been set-up and tested. The shielding effectiveness of the aluminum enclosures housing the Pockels cells and the electronic circuitry has been measured using a high impedance probe and is found to be ∼50 dB. This ensures a noise-free and synchronized electro-optic switching in an Nd:glass re-generative amplifier of chirped pulse amplification based table top terawatt laser system.