Integrated Laser-Target Interaction Experiments on the RAL Petawatt Laser
Since the construction of the first Petawatt laser on the Nova laser facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory we are witnessing the emergence of similar Petawatt-class laser systems at laboratories all around the world. This new generation of lasers, able to deliver several hundred joules of energy in a sub-picosecond pulse, has enabled a host of new discoveries to be made and continues to provide a valuable tool to explore new regimes in relativistic laser-plasma physics--encompassing high energy X-rays and -rays, relativistic electrons, intense ion beams, and superstrong magnetic fields. The coupling in the near-future of multi-kiloJoule Petawatt-class lasers with large-scale fusion lasers.including the NIF and Omega EP (US), LIL (France), and FIREX (Japan)--will further expand opportunities in fast ignition, high energy X-ray radiography, and high energy density physics research. The 500 J Petawatt laser at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is currently the highest energy short-pulse laser in the world. In this paper we describe a recent experimental campaign carried out on the facility. The campaign, performed by a large collaborative team from eight different laboratories, was designed to study a variety of relativistic laser-interaction phenomena including laser absorption, fast electron transport, proton heating, and high-brightness x-ray generation. The wide scope of the experiment necessitated the deployment of a very large set of diagnostics--in total twenty-five separate instruments. In order to obtain the most comprehensive set of measurements all twenty-five diagnostics were fielded simultaneously on every shot.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 899435
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JRNL-225356; TRN: US0701962
- Journal Information:
- Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, vol. 47, no. 12B, December 1, 2005, B833-840, Journal Name: Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion, vol. 47, no. 12B, December 1, 2005, B833-840
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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