High-Repetition-Rate Diagnostics with Integrated Active Control for a New Paradigm of High-Energy-Density Experiments

Project Overview

This project aimed to expand our capabilities in the rapidly-growing field of high repetition rate (HRR), high energy density (HED) laser plasma science, primarily through the development of at least four new diagnostic instruments, new analysis tools to process data from them, and by investigating autonomous optimization through active feedback. Recently, the National Academies of Sciences highlighted short pulse laser science as an area where foreign competitors (particularly in Europe) have gained an advantage. High-quality data from these facilities is of strong interest to the NNSA stockpile stewardship mission as well as emerging fields such as inertial fusion energy and pulsed source development, and building up the wide range of skills and experience required to achieve the desired world-leading performance in this area is vital to establishing and maintaining a US lead.

The project exceeded its goal of four new diagnostics, supporting 12 new instruments and the upgrade of several more, spanning optical, soft x-ray, hard x-ray, neutron and charged particle domains. It delivered new scintillators, optics, micro-fabricated components, cameras and control computers capable of operating at high repetition rates and funded the development of machine-learning-based analysis tools to rapidly analyze, store and communicate results. These advances have been demonstrated at several international facilities and have been reported in at least 8 peer-reviewed papers (Scott et al. 2021; Mariscal, Djordjevíc, et al. 2021; Simpson, Mariscal, Williams, Scott, Djordjevic, Grace, and Ma 2021; Scott et al. 2022; Mariscal, Krauland, et al. 2022; Zeraouli, Mariscal, Grace, et al. 2022; Swanson, Mariscal, Djordjevic, et al. 2022; Mariscal et al. 2023) and 13 conference presentations (Campbell et al. 2022; Hill et al. 2023; Jacobs et al. 2021; Mariscal 2021; Mariscal, Djordjevic, et al. 2021; Mariscal, Djordjevic, et al. 2022; Scott et al. 2021; Simpson, Mariscal, Williams, Scott, Djordjevic, Grace, Kemp, et al. 2021; Simpson, Mariscal, Williams, Scott, Djordjevic, Grace, and Ma 2021; Swanson, Mariscal, Zeraouli, et al. 2022; Swanson et al. 2021; Zeraouli, Mariscal, Campbell, et al. 2022; Zeraouli et al. 2021), underpinning many successful beam time applications for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists including allocations to be executed over the coming year. Strong connections to other projects were established and the project was instrumental in securing funding for further LDRD work into autonomous laser control commencing this year (24-ERD-041), demonstrating its established and enduring value to the lab and to the wider scientific community.

Mission Impact

Enhanced capabilities at high-repetition-rate facilities support the vital work of improving our understanding of material properties and physical processes relevant to the NNSA stockpile stewardship mission, primarily through reduced uncertainties in data for computer simulations and the provision of new sources and diagnostics to probe material at weapon-relevant temperatures and densities. The wide range of instruments and analysis techniques developed and supported by the LDRD program demonstrates the pace at which laser driver technology is advancing and the capabilities it can offer to government, academia and industry, including enhanced non-destructive evaluation and the rapidly expanding fusion energy sector. Autonomous data analysis and feedback incorporating machine learning techniques, as demonstrated in this project, will be vital to the safe and efficient operation of facilities which are firing far more rapidly than a human could respond to, a capability with applications in many other areas both within and beyond the NNSA.

Publications, Presentations, and Patents

Campbell, Paul, Ghassan Zeraouli, Elizabeth Grace, Graeme Scott, Kelly Swanson, Raspberry Simpson, Blagoje Djordjevic, Ryan Nedbailo, Jaebum Park, and Reed Hollinger. 2022. "Development of Neural Networks for Rapid Analysis of a High Repetition Rate X-Ray Diagnostic." Bulletin of the American Physical Society.

Hill, Matthew, Blagoje Djordjevic, Eric Folsom, Elizabeth Grace, Derek Mariscal, Anna Murphy, Dean Rusby, Graeme Scott, Matthew Selwood, and Raspberry Simpson. 2023. "High-repetition-rate diagnostics and analysis techniques for HED experiments." Bulletin of the American Physical Society.

Jacobs, Sam, Tuan Tran, Derek Mariscal, Tim Moon, Blagoje Djordjevic, Michael Wyatt, Brian Essen, and Tammy Ma. 2021. "Learning Augmentation from Data: A Case Study in Scientific Diagnostic Simulations." In APS Division of Plasma Physics Meeting Abstracts, PP11. 159.

Mariscal, DA, BZ Djordjević, R Anirudh, T Bremer, PC Campbell, S Feister, E Folsom, ES Grace, R Hollinger, and SA Jacobs. 2023. "A flexible proton beam imaging energy spectrometer (PROBIES) for high repetition rate or single-shot high energy density (HED) experiments." Review of Scientific Instruments, 94.

Mariscal, DA, BZ Djordjevíc, ES Grace, R Hollinger, T Ma, GG Scott, H Song, RA Simpson, JJ Rocca, and S Wang. 2021. "Design of flexible proton beam imaging energy spectrometers (PROBIES)." Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, 63: 114003.

Mariscal, DA, CM Krauland, BZ Djordjević, GG Scott, RA Simpson, ES Grace, K Swanson, and T Ma. 2022. "Enhanced analysis of experimental x-ray spectra through deep learning." Physics of Plasmas, 29.

Mariscal, Derek. 2021. "Neural Networks for Rapid Analysis of High Repetition Rate Diagnostics." In APS Division of Plasma Physics Meeting Abstracts, NM10. 008.

Mariscal, Derek, Blagoje Djordjevic, Mike MacDonald, Edward Marley, Raspberry Simpson, and Tammy Ma. 2021. "Neural Network Surrogates for Atomic Physics Simulations and X-ray Spectral Evaluation." In APS Division of Plasma Physics Meeting Abstracts, ZO05. 006.

Mariscal, Derek, Blagoje Djordjevic, Ghassan Zeraouli, Kelly Swanson, Raspberry Simpson, Elizabeth Grace, Tom Galvin, Brian Van Essen, Paul Campbell, and Reed Hollinger. 2022. "Towards AI-driven Experiments at PW-class Laser Facilities." Bulletin of the American Physical Society.

Scott, GG, GFH Indorf, MA Ennen, P Forestier-Colleoni, SJ Hawkes, L Scaife, M Sedov, DR Symes, C Thornton, and F Beg. 2021. "Kinematics of femtosecond laser-generated plasma expansion: Determination of sub-micron density gradient and collisionality evolution of over-critical laser plasmas." Physics of Plasmas, 28.

Scott, GG, DA Mariscal, D Canning, RF Heeter, M Krieger, RJ Wallace, C McGuffey, JL Peebles, RA Simpson, and C Stoeckl. 2022. "Demonstration of plasma mirror capability for the OMEGA Extended Performance laser system." Review of Scientific Instruments, 93.

Simpson, Raspberry, Derek Mariscal, Jackson Williams, Graeme Scott, Blagoje Djordjevic, Elizabeth Grace, Andreas Kemp, Scott Wilks, and Tammy Ma. 2021. "A new diagnostic framework for optimizing high-repetition rate short-pulse-laser plasma experiments." In APS Division of Plasma Physics Meeting Abstracts, UO05. 012.

Simpson, Raspberry, Derek Mariscal, Jackson Williams, Graeme Scott, Blagoje Djordjevic, Elizabeth Grace, and Tammy Ma. 2021. "Development of Deep-Learning-Based Automated Analysis for Diagnostics for High-Repetition Rate Laser Driven Acceleration Experiments." In APS Division of Plasma Physics Meeting Abstracts, JM10. 005.

Swanson, Kelly, Derek Mariscal, Ghassan Zeraouli, Blagoje Djordjevic, Bryan Sullivan, Ryan Nedbailo, Graeme Scott, Reed Hollinger, Shoujun Wang, and Jorge Rocca. 2022. 'Machine learning-based analysis of an electron spectrometer for high-repetition-rate laser-driven particle acceleration experiments." Bulletin of the American Physical Society.

Swanson, Kelly, Graeme Scott, Chris Armstrong, Elizabeth Grace, Ghassan Zeraouli, and Tammy Ma. 2021. "Examination of the acceleration mechanisms for relativistic electron generation in an underdense, laser-driven plasma in the picosecond regime." In APS Division of Plasma Physics Meeting Abstracts, BO04. 003.

Swanson, KK, DA Mariscal, BZ Djordjevic, G Zeraouli, GG Scott, R Hollinger, S Wang, H Song, B Sullivan, and R Nedbailo. 2022. "Applications of machine learning to a compact magnetic spectrometer for high repetition rate, laser-driven particle acceleration." Review of Scientific Instruments, 93.

Zeraouli, G, D Mariscal, E Grace, GG Scott, KK Swanson, R Simpson, BZ Djordjevic, R Nedbailo, H Song, and J Morrison. 2022. "Ultra-compact x-ray spectrometer for high-repetition-rate laser-plasma experiments." Review of Scientific Instruments, 93.

Zeraouli, Ghassan, Derek Mariscal, Paul Campbell, Elizabeth Grace, Graeme Scott, Kelly Swanson, Raspberry Simpson, Blagoje Djordjevic, Ryan Nedbailo, and Jaebum Park. 2022. "Effect of high order spectral phase shaping of ultra-intense laser pulses on X-ray generation." Bulletin of the American Physical Society.

Zeraouli, Ghassan, Derek Mariscal, Elizabeth Grace, Graeme Scott, Kelly Swanson, Raspberry Simpson, Blagoje Djordjevic, Ryan Nedbailo, Huanyu Song, and John Morrison. 2021. "Ultra-Compact X-ray Spectrometer (UCXS) for high repetition rate laser plasma experiments." In APS Division of Plasma Physics Meeting Abstracts, UO06. 006.