We report on the J-KAREN-P laser facility at QST, which can provide PW peak power at 0.1 Hz on target. The system can deliver short pulses with an energy of 30 J and pulse duration of 30 fs after compression with a contrast level of better than 10¹². Such performance in high field science will give rise to the birth of new applications and breakthroughs, which include relativistic particle acceleration, bright x-ray source generation, and nuclear activation. The current achieved laser intensity on target is up to > 9x10²¹ Wcm-2 with an energy of ~9 J on target. The interaction with a 3 to 5- μm stainless steel tape target provides us electrons with a typical temperature of more than 10 MeV and energetic proton beams with typical maximum energies of > 40 MeV with good reproducibility. The protons are accelerated in the Target Normal Sheath Acceleration regime, which is suitable for many applications including as an injector into a beamline for medical use, which is one of our objectives.

Date Published: 17 May 2017
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 10241, Research Using Extreme Light: Entering New Frontiers with Petawatt-Class Lasers III, 102410N (17 May 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2271172

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10241:
Research Using Extreme Light: Entering New Frontiers with Petawatt-Class Lasers III
Georg Korn; Luis O. Silva, Editor(s)