Ing. Bedřich Rus, Ph.D.
Michaela Kvasničková
Department of Laser Systems’ team works mainly on the development of coherent X-ray sources such as plasma-based X-ray lasers and high-order harmonic generation, and their scientific applications. Another activity is the development of elements for adaptive optics, namely of wavefront sensors for infrared and X-ray lasers.
The ELI-Beamlines facility will be a high-energy, high repetition rate laser pillar of the ELI (Extreme Light Infrastructure) project. The facility will provide pulses from four laser systems. To meet the requirements for high repetition rates, three of these lasers will employ the emerging technology of diode-pumped solid state lasers (DPSSL) for pumping broadband amplifiers. The fourth, the kilojoule laser, will use advanced flashlamp technology with actively cooled gain medium.
The amplification of short pulses in L1 and L2 systems will be based on OPCPA (Optical Parametric Chirped Pulse Amplification). The L3 system will use a titanium-doped sapphire amplifier. The L4 system utilizes OPCPA preamplifiers delivering multijoule source pulses that are further amplified to the kJ level in neodymium doped glass.
The L1 DPSSL pumping technology is based on the 1kHz Yb: YAG thin disk technology, allowing almost complete elimination of thermal effects on laser beam quality even at high laser output power. Similarly, the L2 pumping laser utilizing Yb-doped YAG (yttrium aluminum grenade) as the active medium eliminates thermal effects by using a unique gas cooled system that maintains Yb-doped YAG at a stable temperature of 150 K (-123 ° C). The L3 pumping laser is based on neodymium doped glass and operates at room temperature.
In summary, these laser systems will provide multi-TW ultra-short laser pulses with high contrast at kHz repetition rate, PW laser pulses with a repetition rate of 10 Hz and kilojoule nanosecond laser pulses with compression capability to achieve 10 PW power. These systems will enable the international user community to meet high-end laser resources for program research in the generation and application of high-intensity X-ray sources, particle acceleration, and in dense-plasma physics and high fields.
More info at ELI Beamlines websites
L1 ALLEGRA Laser
L3 HAPLS Laser
L4 ATON laser