Speaker
Description
Ultrahigh-intensity lasers and laser-driven particle accelerators made rapid progress towards becoming commercial tools. Tau Systems Inc. is working to bring laser-plasma acceleration into the commercial sphere by leveraging expertise in laser physics, laser-driven plasma, conventional accelerators, and data science. Major challenges facing future LWFA-based commercial systems are stability and repeatability, low repetition rates, technical expertise required for operation. To address such challenges, we construct a fully-integrated high average power laser-accelerator facility at TAU Labs (San Diego, CA). The phase I system is driven by a 100 Hz, 1J, 25fs Ti:Sapphire laser accelerating electrons to >100 MeV and will be outfitted with electron, neutron, and X-ray target stations. Diagnostics, control systems, etc. are developed from the ground up to operate at 100+ Hz and be fully integrated. Furthermore, TAU partners with UT Austin and the Berkeley Laser Laboratory Accelerator (BELLA) Center. At UT we upgraded the UT3 Ti:Sapphire laser with a second beamline and dedicated LWFA setup with stable performance at 10Hz, 35fs, 1J on-target. At BELLA we jointly operate the Bella-HTU (100 TW Undulator) to demonstrate laser-driven FEL. We present first results, progress of the 100Hz TAU Labs system and technology considerations for reaching into the multi-kHz regime.
