eXawatt Center for Extreme Light Studies

Abstract

The eXawatt Center for Extreme Light Studies project aimed to create a large scientific infrastructure based on lasers with giant peak power. The project relies on the significant progress achieved in the last decade. The planned infrastructure will incorporate a unique light source with a pulse power of 600 PW using optical parametric chirped pulse amplification in large-aperture KD 2 PO 4 , deuterated potassium dihydrogen phosphate crystals. The interaction of such laser radiation with matter represents a completely new fundamental physics. The direct study of the space-time structure of vacuums and other unknown phenomena at the frontier of high-energy physics and the physics of superstrong fields will be challenged. Expected applications will include the development of compact particle accelerators, the generation of ultrashort pulses of hard X-ray and gamma radiation for material science enabling one to probe material samples with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution, the development of new radiation and particle sources, etc. The paper is translation from Russian [Kvantovaya Elektronika 53, 95 (2023)].

2D-smoothing of laser beam fluctuations in optical compressor

“…Still another particular case of DSGC is a compressor that smooths a beam only along the y axis-Y-smoothing grating compressor (YSGC) at τx = 0. As an example, we considered the compressor for the XCELS project [18] for all four options, with GVD and TOD being the same for all options and τx,y about 1 ns (table 1). A significant advantage of YSGC is that the size of the output beam increases along the y coordinate, while the size of the gratings is limited along the x coordinate.…”

“…The temporal spectrum of the pulse U (t) in high-power laser systems is a supergauss of high power [12,18]. For simplicity we will regard it to be flat-top with width ∆ω.…”

A Review of Optical Parametric Amplification at the Vulcan Laser Facility

“…The scaling of crystal sizes has allowed a new era of Petawatt class lasers based solely on OPCPA to start to emerge [23][24][25][26][27], and while the drive to the highest average power is dominated by Ti:Sapph systems [28][29][30], the possibility for pushing the highest peak power (and higher intensities on targets) is only currently feasible through OPCPA, as shown in Figure 1. Recently, the drive to high-peak-power OPCPA is being simulated and developed in various facilities allowing 10s PW, 100s PW, and even EWs [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. While there is growing demand for scaling LBO crystals [13,39,40], this is currently only possible with the largest available crystals: deuterated Potassium Dihydrogen Phosphate (DKDP), which was first found to be a promising OPCPA candidate in 2005 [41], harbouring broadband amplification from frequency-doubled Nedodymium-doped Yttrium Lithium Fluoride (Nd:YLF) lasers [42].…”

Coherently tiled Ti:sapphire laser amplification: a way to break the 10 petawatt limit on current ultraintense lasers

“…9,10 These fs-PW ultraintense lasers have produced 10 22 to 10 23 W∕cm 2 high intensities, 11,12 providing the conditions for studying the relativistic high-field laser physics. 13,14 However, strong-field quantum electrodynamics (SF-QED), such as vacuum birefringence and strong-field vacuum breakdown, require even higher intensities, >10 23 W∕cm 2 or close to the critical intensity (called the Schwinger limit) ∼10 29 W∕cm 2 , [15][16][17] beyond the capability of the current fs-PW ultraintense lasers.…”

“…The Ti:sapphire CPA, a proven and successful technology that has produced two 10 PW ultraintense lasers, 9,10 will still play an important role in enabling the future of 50 to 100 PW ultraintense lasers. For example, coherently combining 10 beams of 10 PW Ti:sapphire CPA ultraintense lasers is one way to reach 100 PW; 23 tenfold reducing the pulses of a 10 PW Ti:sapphire CPA ultraintense laser with postcompression from ∼25 to 30 fs to 2.5 to 3 fs is another way to 100 PW 24 . In engineering, each of these two approaches has its own difficulties; for example, the former will face the problems of precision space-time control, high cost, and huge engineering, while the latter will face the problems of small-scaled self-focusing, precision dispersion management, and optics damage.…”