We propose a novel method to reconstruct the spatio-temporal amplitude and phase of the electric field of ultrashort laser pulses using spatially-resolved spectral interferometry. This method is based on a fiberoptic coupler interferometer that has certain advantages in comparison with standard interferometer systems, such as it being alignment-free and selection of the reference beam at a single point. Our technique, which we refer to as STARFISH, offers compactness and simplicity. We report its application to the experimental characterization of chirped pulses and to spatio-temporal reconstructions of a convergent beam as well as plane-plane and spherical-plane waves interferences, which we check with our simulations.

Near surface channel waveguides have been fabricated in Neodymium doped YAG ceramics by using IR femtosecond laser irradiation at the low frequency regime. Single mode guidance has been demonstrated with propagation losses of ~1 dB/cm. Time resolved confocal micro-luminescence experiments have been used to determine the spectroscopic properties of the Nd(3+) laser ions in the channel waveguide as well as to elucidate the waveguide formation processes.

The Centro de Laseres Pulsados in Salamanca Spain has recently started operation phase and the first User access period on the 6 J 30 fs 200 TW system (VEGA 2) already started at the beginning of 2018. In this paper we report on two commissioning experiments recently performed on the VEGA 2 system in preparation for the user campaign. VEGA 2 system has been tested in different configurations depending on the focusing optics and targets used. One configuration (long focal length f=130 cm) is for under-dense laser-matter interaction where VEGA 2 is focused onto a low density gas-jet generating electron beams (via laser wake field acceleration mechanism) with maximum energy up to 500 MeV and an X-ray betatron source with a 10 keV critical energy. A second configuration (short focal length f=40 cm) is for over-dense laser-matter interaction where VEGA 2 is focused onto an 5 µm thick Al target generating a proton beam with a maximum energy of 10 MeV and average energy of 7-8 MeV and temperature of 2.5 MeV. In this paper we present preliminary experimental results.

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