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Ramping of the laser to its full performance has been organized in several phases. The first phase, completed last October, brought the pump laser to an intermediate performance level in a “single shot” regime, as opposed to an average power regime in which the amplifiers are thermally loaded. “In the second phase,” Haefner said, “we brought it up to average power, and that was an intermediate performance level. And now we’re integrating the pump laser and the short-pulse system. Together with ELI Beamlines we will integrate the short-pulse performance diagnostics, and then we will ramp the short-pulse laser system, similar to what we did for the pump laser system, first to energy and then to average power.”
“The reason for the phased approach,” said Systems Architect and Commissioning Manager Andy Bayramian, “is that we operate the laser at the intermediate performance level, learn how to operate it, identify operational challenges and input-data errors if they exist, and once we have gained operational experience, then we ramp it to its full performance.”
The engineering of the HAPLS laser combines many disciplines to produce a high-quality design. Electrical, mechanical, optical, precision, controls, vacuum and infrastructure engineering teams have contributed to deliver the required components for a fully functional laser.
HAPLS is designed to allow for future upgrades and scaling to even higher energies and repetition rates, which will ensure the longevity and scientific competitiveness of the ELI Beamlines facility.
“HAPLS will allow its users for the first time to approach the commercial applications arena for laser-generated secondary sources,” Haefner said. “There’s no other laser which actually can produce sufficient average power of the high-intensity light required for commercial applications.”
The system’s pulses will be used to generate extremely bright and short X-ray pulses for imaging cells and proteins at unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution. Another application is generating bunches of protons or ions for medical therapy and materials science research. Scientists also will study the interaction of intense laser light with matter to improve understanding of high energy density science.
