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Persistent URL http://purl.org/net/epubs/work/65500
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Record Id 65500
Title RAL high power laser facility enhancements : joint projects final report
Contributors
MH Key (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), S Angood (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), LJ Barzanti (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), AR Damerell (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), CN Danson (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), EJ Divall (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), KN Drodge (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), MD Ebbage (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), CB Edwards (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), MJ Gander (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), J Govans (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), S Hancock (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), GJ Hirst (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), CJ Hooker (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), JR Houliston (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), AK Kidd (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), JMD Lister (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), R Mahadeo (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), D Neely (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), P Norreys (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), DA Pepler (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), SA Rivers (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), DA Rodkiss (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), IN Ross (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), MJ Shaw (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), M Smith (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), P Taday (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), WT Toner (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), TB Winstone (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), FN Walsh (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), K Wigmore (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), RWW Wyatt (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), B Wyborn (DRAL Rutherford Appleton Lab.), MHR Hutchinson (Imperial College, London), S Luan (Imperial College, London), IP Mercer (Imperial College, London), GHC New (Imperial College, London), RA Smith (Imperial College, London), DC Wilson (Imperial College, London), F Zhou (Imperial College, London), JRM Barr (Southampton U.), DC Hanna (Southampton U.), DW Hughes (Southampton U.), A Majdabadi (Southampton U.), JM Evans (St Andrews U.), W Sibbett (Southampton U.), K Osvay (JATE U., Hungary), Z Chang (Xian Inst. Optics, China)
Abstract This report describes the 2 year Joint Project undertaken by the Central Laser Facility,the University of St Andrews, Southampton ORC and Imperial College to enhance the performance of high power lasers at the CLF. Three projects were undertaken: Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) on the Vulcan Glass Laser (Imperial College and Southampton) Sub-Picosecond CPA Pulses on the Sprite KrF Laser (St Andrews) Enhancement of the Sprite Raman Beam (Imperial College) The projects were outstandingly successful, resulting in very significant improvements in the capabilities of the high power lasers at the CLF. This work places the CLF as a world leader in high brightness laser facilities. The stimulus given to UK expertise in the field of short pulse, high power lasers is an important spin-off from this initiative. The application of the CPA technique to Vulcan has raised the performance to 35 TW in a pulse duration of 620 fs. An irradiance on target of 1019 W cm-2 at A= 1.05 11m has been obtained, enabling experiments in the relativistic regime to be performed for the first time. A pulse-to-background contrast ratio of better than 3 x 106 has been measured. Sub-picosecond output has been obtained from Sprite using CPA. This is the first time that the technique has been applied to a UV laser. A power of 1 TW has been delivered to target in a pulse of 290 fs duration. Focused irradiance at 1Q19 W cm-2 at A= 248 nm has been obtained and made available to users. The enhancement of the Sprite Raman beam has doubled the power on target to 1 1W at a pulse duration of 10 ps. The maximum energy has increased from 5 J to over 13 J at a pulse duration of 25 ps. This unique prepulse-free beam can be focused to a near diffraction limited spot, producing 1019 W cm-2 irradiance at A= 268 nm establishing Sprite at the forefront of high brightness laser facilities. These new facilities have provided experimenters at the CLF with unique capabilities for the study of laser interaction with matter at extreme intensity. Exploitation of these opportunities has been rapid and exciting leading to many topical publications from user groups and RAL staff. Appendix A lists in press and published material. Many invited papers and other conference presentations arose from this work
Organisation CLF , DRAL
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Language English (EN)
Type Details URI(s) Local file(s) Year
Report RAL Technical Reports RAL-94-059. DRAL, 1994. 94059.pdf 1994