We present optical trapping and levitation of silver-coated hollow glass spheres using a LG01 vortex laser. We successfully levitate reflective targets ranging from 53μm to 93μm in diameter with powers ranging from 50mW to 1W. Our system is designed for long working distance trapping (40mm-100mm) which is desirable for in-vacuo alignment and manipulation of mass-limited microtargets for high energy plasma applications, by limiting optical component damage from high-intensity light-matter interactions.
We have examined the interaction of deuterium clusters with high intensity, ultrafast laser radiation. Upon irradiation a hot plasma is created with a sufficient temperature to produce nuclear fusion. We have seen that larger clusters produce more fusion neutrons than small er clusters, consistent with a Coulomb explosion model. Fusion yields is currently limited by propagation effects. Using interferometric imaging we have examined the laser propagation and found that the laser energy is absorbed before it penetrates to the center of the gas jet.
Colin Danson, L. Barzanti, Chungu Zenghu, A. Damerell, Mike Dooley, Christopher Edwards, S. Hancock, Michael Key, R. Mahadeo, M. Miller, Peter Norreys, C. Ollman, David Pepler, D. Rodkiss, Ian Ross, M. Smith, P. Taday, W. Toner, K. Wigmore, T. Winstone, R. Wyatt, Shen Luan, F. Beg, Angus Bell, A. Dangor, Marcus Hutchinson, P. Lee, Ian Mercer, Roland Smith, F. Zhou, A. Fews
A Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) mode of operation is being developed on the VULCAN high power Nd:glass laser system, at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL). Experiments have been carried out using an interim configuration yielding pulses of up to 30 J on target of 2.4 picoseconds length at focused intensities up to 4 X 1017 W cm-2, with contrast ratio of 106. In the CPA technique the amplification of a stretched pulse to high energy followed by recompression provides a means of delivering a higher peak power to target than can be propagated through the laser system due to non-linear effects and component damage thresholds. In the system described here a grating pair is used to stretch a transform limited pulse of 2 ps, to 80 ps prior to amplification to high energy (80 J). The linear stretch produced by the gratings enables the pulse to be recompressed without pedestal. Recompression to the 10 TW level by a second grating pair is carried out in a vacuum propagation and reflective focusing system to avoid non-linear effects in air, windows and lenses.
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