Generation and application of high-contrast laser pulses using plasma mirror in the SULF-1PW beamline

Abstract

The plasma mirror system was installed on the 1 PW laser beamline of Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser Facility (SULF) for enhancing the temporal contrast of the laser pulse. About 2 orders of magnitude improvement on pulse contrast was measured on picosecond and nanosecond time scales. The experiments show that high-contrast laser pulses can significantly improve the cutoff energy and quantity of proton beams. Then different target distributions are assumed in particles in cell simulations, which can qualitatively assume the expansion of nanometer-scale foil. The high-contrast laser enables the SULF-1PW beamline to generally be of benefit for many potential applications.

Optimal collimation of proton beams accelerated by a Laguerre–Gaussian laser with a proper pulse duration

“…Using the recently developed multi-petawatt laser technology, laser intensities up to an order of 10 22 W cm −2 can be achieved [1][2][3]. Energetic ion beams can be realized via intense laser interactions induced on solid targets [4][5][6] using different acceleration mechanisms, such as target normal sheath acceleration (TNSA) [7][8][9], radiation pressure acceleration, collisionless shock acceleration (CSA) [10][11][12], and so on. Among these mechanisms, TNSA is the easiest and most robust method for generating proton beams with energies of the order of ∼100 MeV under current laboratory conditions [7][8][9]13].…”

Suppression of nanosecond prepulses from regenerative amplifier and multipass amplifiers in the SULF-1PW laser

“…So far, the highest peak power has reached 10 PW, and the largest focused peak intensity has exceeded 10 23 W=cm 2 [7][8][9] . For such high-intensity laser facilities, the temporal contrast has become a crucial parameter for laser-matter interactions [10][11][12] . Since the prepulses or pedestals with intensity over 10 11 W=cm 2 would inevitably generate preplasma prior to the main pulse in the laser-matter interaction process [13] , the methods and techniques to suppress the unwanted prepulses or pedestals while maintaining the focused peak intensity of the main pulse deserve to be taken into consideration.…”