Controlling fast-electron-beam divergence using two laser pulses.

This Letter describes the first experimental demonstration of the guiding of a relativistic electron beam in a solid target using two colinear, relativistically intense, picosecond laser pulses. The first pulse creates a magnetic field that guides the higher-current, fast-electron beam generated by the second pulse. The effects of intensity ratio, delay, total energy, and intrinsic prepulse are examined. Thermal and Kα imaging show reduced emission size, increased peak emission, and increased total emission at delays of 4-6 ps, an intensity ratio of 10∶1 (second:first) and a total energy of 186 J. In comparison to a single, high-contrast shot, the inferred fast-electron divergence is reduced by 2.7 times, while the fast-electron current density is increased by a factor of 1.8. The enhancements are reproduced with modeling and are shown to be due to the self-generation of magnetic fields. Such a scheme could be of considerable benefit to fast-ignition inertial fusion.

Development of a novel large bandwidth front-end system for high peak power OPCPA systems.

We present the development of a laser system capable of generating bandwidths sufficient to support a sub 30 fs pulse at 910 nm. These pulses have been amplified to 500 mJ of energy at 2 Hz in two stages. The contrast measurements show that the initial seed is clean and suggests that the close in contrast is limited by the evaluation stretcher and compressor. Such a system is suitable for seeding high energy high power OPCPA systems based on KD*P.

Minimization of the impact of a broad bandwidth high-gain nonlinear preamplifier to the amplified spontaneous emission pedestal of the Vulcan petawatt laser facility.

To generate petawatt pulses using the Vulcan Nd:glass laser requires a broad bandwidth high-gain preamplifier. The preamplifier used is an optical parametric amplifier that provides a total gain of 10(8) in three amplification stages. We report on a detailed investigation of the effect of the Vulcan optical parametric chirped pulse amplification (OPCPA) preamplifier on contrast caused by the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) pedestal that extends up to 2 ns before the arrival of the main pulse. The contrast after compression is improved to 4x10(8) of the intensity of the main pulse using near-field apertures between the stages of the OPCPA preamplifier. Further reduction of the level of the ASE pedestal can be achieved at the cost of a reduction in amplified bandwidth by solely phosphate glass amplification after initial preamplification rather than a mixed glass amplification scheme.