A laser driven pulsed X-ray backscatter technique for enhanced penetrative imaging.

X-ray backscatter imaging can be used for a wide range of imaging applications, in particular for industrial inspection and portal security. Currently, the application of this imaging technique to the detection of landmines is limited due to the surrounding sand or soil strongly attenuating the 10s to 100s of keV X-rays required for backscatter imaging. Here, we introduce a new approach involving a 140 MeV short-pulse (< 100 fs) electron beam generated by laser wakefield acceleration to probe the sample, which produces Bremsstrahlung X-rays within the sample enabling greater depths to be imaged. A variety of detector and scintillator configurations are examined, with the best time response seen from an absorptive coated BaF2 scintillator with a bandpass filter to remove the slow scintillation emission components. An X-ray backscatter image of an array of different density and atomic number items is demonstrated. The use of a compact laser wakefield accelerator to generate the electron source, combined with the rapid development of more compact, efficient and higher repetition rate high power laser systems will make this system feasible for applications in the field. Content includes material subject to Dstl (c) Crown copyright (2014). Licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@ nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk.

High-energy, ceramic-disk Yb:LuAG laser amplifier.

We report the first short-pulse amplification results to several hundred millijoule energies in ceramic Yb:LuAG. We have demonstrated ns-pulse output from a diode-pumped Yb:LuAG amplifier at a maximum energy of 580 mJ and a peak optical-to-optical efficiency of 28% at 550 mJ. In cavity dumped operation of a nanosecond oscillator we obtained 1 mJ at up to 100 Hz repetition rate. A gain bandwidth of 5.4 nm was achieved at room temperature by measuring the small-signal single-pass gain. Furthermore, we compared our results with Yb:YAG within the same amplifier system.

Optimising the efficiency of pulsed diode pumped Yb:YAG laser amplifiers for ns pulse generation.

We present a numerical model of a pulsed, diode-pumped Yb:YAG laser amplifier for the generation of high energy ns-pulses. This model is used to explore how optical-to-optical efficiency depends on factors such as pump duration, pump spectrum, pump intensity, doping concentration, and operating temperature. We put special emphasis on finding ways to achieve high efficiency within the practical limitations imposed by real-world laser systems, such as limited pump brightness and limited damage fluence. We show that a particularly advantageous way of improving efficiency within those constraints is operation at cryogenic temperature. Based on the numerical findings we present a concept for a scalable amplifier based on an end-pumped, cryogenic, gas-cooled multi-slab architecture.