Emily Link | 17-ERD-033
Overview
Novel architectures of petawatt-class, high-peak-power laser systems that allow operations at high repetition rates are opening a new arena of commercial applications of secondary sources and discovery science. The natural path to higher average power is to reduce the total heat load induced and generated in the laser gain medium and to eliminate other inefficiencies, with the goal to turn more energy into laser photons while maintaining good beam quality. At the same time, the laser architecture must be tailored to the specific application, and laser parameters such as wavelength, peak power and intensity, pulse length, and shot rate must be optimized.
We developed a number of different concepts tailored to secondary source generation that minimize inefficiencies and maximize the average power. The Scalable High-average-power Advanced Radiographic Capability (SHARC) and the Big Aperture Thulium (BAT) laser are examples of two such high-average-power laser concepts. SHARC is designed for production of ion beams and x-rays and exploration of high-energy-density physics at 1.5 kilowatt (kW) average power, and BAT is envisioned for driving laser-based electron accelerators at 300 kW average power.
Impact on Mission
Our research advances Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's core competencies in high-energy-density, laser, and optical science. Our results enable a new class of industrial lasers for manufacturing and critically important laser systems to meet DOE and NNSA goals by strengthening Livermore's inertial fusion science mission focus.
Publications, Presentations, Etc.
Bayramian, A. and Haefner, C. 2017. "High Average Power Petawatt Laser Systems Enabling the Transition from Proof of Principle Experiments to Commercial Applications." Advanced Lasers and Photon Sources Conference, Yokohama, Japan, April 2017. LLNL-PRES-729681.
––– . 2017. "High Average Power Drive Lasers for EuPRAXIA: Tm:YLF Based Architecture." 2nd EuPRAXIA Collaboration Meeting, Lisbon, Portugal, November 2017, LLNL-PRES-742218.
––– . 2018. "Scaling High Intensity Laser Systems from State-of-the-Art to MW-class Enabling Next Generation Light Sources." OSA High-brightness Sources and Light-driven Interactions Congress, Strasbourg, France, March 2018, LLNL-PRES-748562.
Chesnut, K., et al. 2019. "Entirely Reflective Slit Spatial Filter for High-Energy Laser Systems." Opt. Expr. 27 (19), p. 27017 (2019). LLNL-JRNL-758559.
Galvin, T., et al. 2019. "Scaling of Petawatt-Class Lasers to Multi-kHz Repetition Rates." SPIE Optics and Optoelectronics, Prague, Czech Republic, April 2019. LLNL-CONF-769346.
Haefner, C. 2018. "The Big Aperture Thulium Laser: Research and Development to Validate Efficient MIR Laser Technologies for Future Laser Wakefield Accelerators." DOE Office of Science Program Funding Opportunity Announcement LAB-18-1879, (2018). LLNL-PROP-773439.
—— 2018. "Energetic High Average Power Petawatt Laser Systems: A New Generation of Lasers Enabling Precision Science and Commercial Applications." International Conference on Applications of Lasers and Electro-Optics, Orlando, FL, October 2018. LLNL-PRES-749053.
Haefner, C., et al. 2017. "The Big Aperture Thulium Laser: Research and Development to Validate Efficient MIR Laser Technologies for Future Laser Wakefield Accelerators." DOE Office of Science Program Funding Opportunity Announcement LAB-17-1779, (2017). LLNL-PROP-736443.
––– . 2017. "High Efficiency, Diode Pumped Petawatt Lasers for the Next Generation Particle Accelerators and Secondary Sources." European Advanced Accelerators Conference, Elba, Italy, September 2017. LLNL-PRES-730848.
––– . 2017. "kW Short Pulse Laser Driver Technology." Workshop on Laser Technology for k-BELLA and Beyond, Berkeley, CA, May 2017, LLNL-PRES-731429.
––– . 2018. "Energetic High Average Power Petawatt Laser Systems: A New Generation of Lasers Enabling Precision Science and Commercial Applications." 3rd International Symposium on High Power Laser Science and Engineering, Suzhou, China, April 2018. LLNL-PRES-749053.
––– . 2019. "The Big Aperture Thulium Laser: Research and Development to Validate Efficient MIR Laser Technologies for Future Laser Wakefield Accelerators." DOE Office of Science Program Funding Opportunity Announcement LAB-19-2069, (2019). LLNL-PROP-750237.
Leisher, P., et al. 2018. "New Architectures for PW-Scale High Peak Power Lasers Scalable to Near-MW Average Powers." Advanced Lasers and Photon Sources 2018, Yokohama, Japan, April 2018. LLNL-PRES-750143.
Reagan, B. 2019. "LLNL Laser Concept for the MEC Upgrade at LCLS." SLAC MEC Laser Upgrade Whitepaper (2019). LLNL-MI-767409.
Siders, C., et al. 2018. "Pushing Energetic High Peak Power Lasers Beyond The Kilowatt Barrier." High Power Laser Ablation, Santa Fe, NM, March 2018, LLNL-PRES-748574.
—— 2018. "Update on PW Rep-Rated Laser Developments at LLNL." 3 rd EuPRAXIA Collaboration Meeting, Liverpool, England, July 2018, LLNL-PRES-754078.
––– . 2019. "Wavelength Scaling of Laser Wakefield Acceleration for the EuPRAXIA Design Point." Instruments 3, 44, (2019). doi:10.3390/instruments3030044. LLNL-JRNL-768621.
––– . 2019. "Thulium-based EUV Drive Lasers Scalable to Near-MW Average Powers." EUVL Workshop, CXRO, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, June 2019. LLNL-PRES-777857.
Sistrunk, E., et al. 2018. "High Efficiency, Diode-pumped Petawatt-class Lasers for Next Generation Particle Accelerators." Advanced Accelerator Concepts Workshop, Breckenridge, CO, August 2018. LLNL-PRES-756382.
––– . 2019. "High Average Power Lasers for LWFA." ALEGRO Workshop, Geneva, Switzerland, March 2019. LLNL-PRES-770228.
––– . 2019. "Laser Technology Development for High Peak Power Lasers Achieving Kilowatt Average Power and Beyond." SPIE Optics and Optoelectronics, Prague, Czech Republic, April 2019. LLNL-PROC-769117.
Spinka, T., et al. 2017. "Kilowatt-Class, Application-Enabling Petawatt Laser Technology." Ultrafast Optics Conference, Jackson Hole, WY, October 2017. LLNL-PRES-739587.
––– . 2017. "High Average Power Drive Lasers for JuSPARC." JuSPARC Meeting, at LLNL, Livermore, CA, November 2017. LLNL-PRES-742743.
––– . 2019. "Enabling Technologies and Architectures for Joule-Class and Beyond High Average Power Lasers." SPIE Photonics West, San Francisco, CA (2019). LLNL-PRES-767410.
