Proof-of-Principle Experiment on the Dynamic Shell Formation for Inertial Confinement Fusion.

In the dynamic-shell (DS) concept [V. N. Goncharov et al., Novel Hot-Spot Ignition Designs for Inertial Confinement Fusion with Liquid-Deuterium-Tritium Spheres, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 065001 (2020).PRLTAO0031-900710.1103/PhysRevLett.125.065001] for laser-driven inertial confinement fusion the deuterium-tritium fuel is initially in the form of a homogeneous liquid inside a wetted-foam spherical shell. This fuel is ignited using a conventional implosion, which is preceded by a initial compression of the fuel followed by its expansion and dynamic formation of a high-density fuel shell with a low-density interior. This Letter reports on a scaled-down, proof-of-principle experiment on the OMEGA laser demonstrating, for the first time, the feasibility of DS formation. A shell is formed by convergent shocks launched by laser pulses at the edge of a plasma sphere, with the plasma itself formed as a result of laser-driven compression and relaxation of a surrogate plastic-foam ball target. Three x-ray diagnostics, namely, 1D spatially resolved self-emission streaked imaging, 2D self-emission framed imaging, and backlighting radiography, have shown good agreement with the predicted evolution of the DS and its stability to low Legendre mode perturbations introduced by laser irradiation and target asymmetries.

Microcoulomb (0.7 ± [Formula: see text] µC) laser plasma accelerator on OMEGA EP.

Laser-plasma accelerators (LPAs) driven by picosecond-scale, kilojoule-class lasers can generate particle beams and x-ray sources that could be utilized in experiments driven by multi-kilojoule, high-energy-density science (HEDS) drivers such as the OMEGA laser at the Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE) or the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. This paper reports on the development of the first LPA driven by a short-pulse, kilojoule-class laser (OMEGA EP) connected to a multi-kilojoule HEDS driver (OMEGA). In experiments, electron beams were produced with electron energies greater than 200 MeV, divergences as low as 32 mrad, charge greater than 700 nC, and conversion efficiencies from laser energy to electron energy up to 11%. The electron beam charge scales with both the normalized vector potential and plasma density. These electron beams show promise as a method to generate MeV-class radiography sources and improved-flux broadband x-ray sources at HEDS drivers.

Optical characterization of the on-target OMEGA focal spot at high energy using the full-beam in-tank diagnostic.

The full-beam in-tank (FBIT) diagnostic has been deployed to directly measure the target-plane beam fluence profile, when operated at high energy, of the OMEGA Laser System at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics. This paper presents the results of early measurements taken with this diagnostic and discusses an improvement that has overcome performance limitations discovered during the initial testing. The diagnostic gives new insight into the ability of the OMEGA Laser System to provide uniform fluence profiles that are consistent across all 60 beams in the laser. The ultimate goal of the FBIT diagnostic is to allow accurate assessment of the fluence uniformity on a spherical target in 60-beam implosion experiments.

Inferred UV fluence focal-spot profiles from soft x-ray pinhole-camera measurements on OMEGA.

A method was developed with laser-irradiated Au planar foils to characterize the focal spot of UV laser beams on a target at full energy from soft x-ray emission. A pinhole camera with a back-thinned charge-coupled device detector and filtration with thin Be and Al foil filters provides images of the x-ray emission at photon energies <2 keV. This method requires a careful measurement of the relationship between the applied UV fluence and the x-ray signal, which can be described by a power-law dependence. The measured exponent γ ∼ 2 provides a dynamic range of ∼25 for the inferred UV fluence. UV fluence profiles of selected beams were measured for 100-ps and 1-ns laser pulses and were compared to directly measured profiles from an UV equivalent-target-plane diagnostic. The inferred spot size and super-Gaussian order from the x-ray technique agree within several percent with the values measured with the direct UV measurements.

Power balancing the multibeam OMEGA laser.

Multibeam lasers often require an output beam balance that specifies the degree of simultaneity of the laser output energy, instantaneous power, or instantaneous irradiance (power per unit area). This work describes the general problem of balancing a multibeam laser. Specific techniques used to balance the output power of the 60-beam pulsed OMEGA Laser System are discussed along with a measured reduction of beam-to-beam imbalance. In particular, the square-pulse distortion induced by a simple saturating amplifier operating with its output at some fraction of its saturation fluence is derived, and a method to exchange gain between saturated amplifiers in a single beam that have different saturation fluences to adjust balance is described.

Single-shot high-resolution characterization of optical pulses by spectral phase diversity.

The concept of spectral phase diversity is proposed and applied to the temporal characterization of optical pulses. The experimental trace is composed of the measured power of a plurality of ancillary optical pulses derived from the pulse under test by adding known amounts of chromatic dispersion. The spectral phase of the pulse under test is retrieved by minimizing the error between the experimental trace and a trace calculated using the known optical spectrum and diagnostic parameters. An assembly composed of splitters and dispersive delay fibers has been used to generate 64 ancillary pulses whose instantaneous power can be detected in a single shot with a high-bandwidth photodiode and oscilloscope. The diagnostic is experimentally shown to accurately characterize pulses from a chirped-pulse-amplification system when its stretcher is detuned from the position for optimal recompression. Pulse-shape reconstruction for pulses shorter than the photodetection impulse response has been demonstrated. Various investigations of the performance with respect to the number of ancillary pulses and the range of chromatic dispersion generated in the diagnostic are presented.

In situ detection and analysis of laser-induced damage on a 1.5-m multilayer-dielectric grating compressor for high-energy, petawatt-class laser systems.

A grating-inspection system and a damage-analysis method have been developed to measure in situ laser-induced damage on a 1.5-m tiled-grating assembly of the OMEGA EP pulse compressor during a 15-ps, 2.2-kJ energy ramp. The beam fluence at which significant damage growth occurred was determined. This is the first report on beam fluence versus laser-induced-damage growth of meter-sized multilayer-dielectric-diffraction gratings. This result was correlated to the damage-probability measurement conducted on a small grating sample and is consistent with the fluence, corresponding to 100% damage probability.

High-contrast plasma-electrode Pockels cell.

A plasma-electrode Pockels cell (PEPC) has been developed for use on the OMEGA extended performance (EP) laser system that can be used in a high-contrast optical switch, as required for isolation of the system from retroreflected pulses. Contrast ratios reliably exceeded 500:1 locally everywhere in the clear aperture. The key to achieving this improvement was the use of circular windows simply supported on compliant O rings, which is shown to produce very low stress-induced birefringence despite vacuum loading. Reliable operation was achieved operating at a relatively high operating pressure, low operating pressures being found to be strongly correlated to occurrences of local loss of plasma density.

High-conversion-efficiency optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system using spatiotemporally shaped pump pulses.

High-conversion-efficiency, high-stability optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification is demonstrated with a spatiotemporally shaped pump laser system. Broadband 5-mJ pulses are produced at a 5-Hz repetition rate with a pump-to-signal conversion efficiency of 29% and energy stability better than 2% rms. To our knowledge this is the highest conversion efficiency and stability achieved in an optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system.

Design of a highly stable, high-conversion-efficiency, optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification system with good beam quality.

An optical parametric chirped-pulse amplifier (OPCPA) design that provides 40% pump-to-signal conversion efficiency and over-500-mJ signal energy at 1054 nm for front-end injection into a Nd:glass amplifier chain is presented. This OPCPA system is currently being built as the prototype front end for the OMEGA EP (extended performance) laser system at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics. Using a three-dimensional spatial and temporal numerical model, several design considerations necessary to achieve high conversion efficiency, good output stability, and good beam quality are discussed. The dependence of OPCPA output on the pump beam's spatiotemporal shape and the relative size of seed and pump beams is described. This includes the effects of pump intensity modulation and pump-signal walk-off. The trade-off among efficiency, stability, and low output beam intensity modulation is discussed.

Precision spectral sculpting for narrow-band amplification of broadband frequency-modulated pulses.

Amplification of broadband frequency-modulated (FM) pulses in high-efficiency materials such as ytterbium-doped strontium fluorapatite results in significant gain narrowing, leading to reduced on-target bandwidths for beam smoothing and to conversion from frequency modulation to amplitude modulation (AM). To compensate for these effects, we have applied precision spectral sculpting, requiring both amplitude and phase shaping, to the amplification of broadband FM pulses in narrow-band gain media. We have demonstrated sculpting for centerline small-signal gains of 10(4), producing amplified pulses that have both sufficient bandwidths for on-target beam smoothing and temporal profiles that have no potentially damaging AM.

Real-time SPIDER: ultrashort pulse characterization at 20 Hz.

We present an implementation of spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction (SPIDER) which characterizes ultrashort optical pulses in the spectral or temporal domain at a rate of 20 Hz. This apparatus was used in real-time as a diagnostic tool to optimize our 1 kHz regeneratively amplified laser system for the shortest duration pulses.