Initial Results from the OMEGA EP Laser System

The OMEGA EP Laser, with four NIF-like beams, was completed in April 2008. The beams can be operated at 351~nm, with each ultimately producing 6.5 kJ in a 10-ns pulse into the OMEGA EP target chamber. Two of the beams can be operated as high-energy petawatt lasers (HEPW), each producing up to 2.6 kJ in a 1053 nm, 10-ps pulse. The HEPW beams can be directed into the OMEGA EP target chamber or into the 60-beam OMEGA target chamber for experiments that combine target compression with HEPW capability. Initial experiments include measurements of the duration-dependent HEPW laser-to-fast-electron conversion efficiency, isochoric heating of small-mass targets, radiography of imploding targets, integrated fast ignition, materials physics, and the development of $>$10-keV backlighting sources. These results show the effectiveness of OMEGA EP for high-energy-density physics experiments. This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Inertial Confinement Fusion under Cooperative Agreement No. DE-FC52-08NA28302.