Speaker
Dr
Sven Steinke
(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
Description
Sven Steinke, Stepan Bulanov, Qing Ji, Thomas Schenkel, Eric H. Esarey, and Wim P. Leemans (LBNL)
BELLA, the Berkeley Lab laser accelerator center hosts a 1 PW Ti:sapp laser with 1 Hz repetition rate, where electron acceleration to 4.5 GeV was demonstrated recently [1]. For electron acceleration, irradiances of up to 1019 W/cm2 are desired and these are implemented with a long focal length laser beamline and beam spots of w0=52mm. Much higher irradiances of 1022 W/cm2 can be achieved when the laser beam is focus more tightly, to a spot of w0<5 mm in a shorter focal length beamline. A key requirement for many application of laser-matter interaction in this regime, such as laser-ion acceleration or the generation of relativistic surface high harmonics is the ultra-high intensity contrast of the laser pulse.
We will describe our design for a short focal lengths beamline, BELLA-i, including multiple plasma mirrors for ultra-high contrast in the laser pulse. The resulting laser pulses will enable reliable access to many exciting aspects of high energy density laboratory physics and laser-matter interactions in the relativistic regime for a community of users.
Primary author
Dr
Sven Steinke
(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
