Trident laser

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A Molybdenum foil irradiated by the Trident Laser (entering from the left), producing x-rays, hot electrons, and an ion beam, which cannot be seen directly. The plasma from the intense interaction is visible as the two cones jetting out in either direction from the target (center), expanding into the vacuum. X-ray produced plasmas on the surrounding surfaces create a bow shock in the expanding plasmas, as seen left of center in front of the the cone shaped x-ray camera (far left). The green light illuminating the scene is from the second harmonic light (527 nm) produced from the short-pulse beam's fundamental wavelength (1053 nm) at the target/plasma/laser interface a few 10s of microns in front of the target.
A Molybdenum foil irradiated by the Trident Laser (entering from the left), producing x-rays, hot electrons, and an ion beam, which cannot be seen directly. The plasma from the intense interaction is visible as the two cones jetting out in either direction from the target (center), expanding into the vacuum. X-ray produced plasmas on the surrounding surfaces create a bow shock in the expanding plasmas, as seen left of center in front of the the cone shaped x-ray camera (far left). The green light illuminating the scene is from the second harmonic light (527 nm) produced from the short-pulse beam's fundamental wavelength (1053 nm) at the target/plasma/laser interface a few 10s of microns in front of the target.

The Trident Laser is a sub-Petawatt class solid-state laser facility located at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL website), in Los Alamos, New Mexico, originally built in the late 1980s for Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) research by KMS Fusion, founded by Kip Siegel, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, it was moved to Los Alamos in the early 1990s[1]. The Trident Laser has been opened up to external users via the Trident National User Program and potential users can now submit proposals for laser time.

The Trident Laser consists of three main laser chains (A,B, and C) of Neodynium glass amplifiers (or Nd:glass), two are identical longpulse beams lines, A&B, and a third beamline, C, that can be operated either in longpulse or in chirped pulse amplification (CPA) shortpulse mode[2]. Longpulse beams A and B, are laser chains capable of delivering up to ~500 J at 1054 nm, which are frequency doubled to 527 nm and ~200 J depending on pulse duration; the pulse duration can be varied from 100 ps to 1 µs, and is a unique capability of any large laser in the US (and possibly the world). The third laser chain, beamline C, can produce up to ~200 J at 1054 nm, or can be frequency doubled to 527 nm at ~100 J in the longpulse mode with the same pulse duration variability as beams A and B; or can be use in the recently (June 2007) completed Trident enhancement configuration allowing the ~200 J beam to be compressed via CPA to ~600 fs and ~120 J, producing powers on the scale of a quarter Petawatt(~250 TW).

The shortpulse system is capable of focusing the C beam down to less than 10 microns in diameter to reach ultrahigh intensities of ~2x1020 W/cm². The laser is currently being used for Fast Ignition ICF research, materials dynamics studies, and laser-matter instability studies, including particle acceleration, x-ray backlighting and laser-plasma instabilities.

For more information see the Trident User Facility Website: Trident User Facility, Los Alamos National Laboratory.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Trident: a versatile high-power Nd:glass laser facility for inertial confinement fusion experiments," N. K. Moncur, R. P. Johnson, R. G. Watt, and R. B. Gibson, Applied Optics 34 p.4274 (1995)
  2. ^ Trident as an Ultrahigh Irradiance Laser, R.P Johnson et. al, LA-UR-9541 (1995), Los Alamos National Laboratory