Femtosecond Pulse Length Diagnostics for the BELLA Hundred-Terawatt Thomson Laser

POSTER

Abstract

This year, the Hundred-Terawatt Thomson (HTT) group at the BELLA Center has commissioned a 100TW, 3.8J laser system delivering 38fs pulses. This laser system is used to drive a laser-plasma accelerator (LPA), which is designed to interact with a separate scatter laser pulse to create quasimonoenergetic MeV gamma beams with energies adjustable from 1 to 9 MeV. This poster presents motivations, efforts, and the results of creating real-time laser pulse diagnostics by an internally-constructed single-shot autocorrelator, as well as some of the systematic and methodological approaches to the resolution of fluctuating pulse duration issues.

*This work was supported in part by the U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WTDS) under the Science Undergraduates Laboratory Internships Program (SULI).

Authors

  • William Wallace

    • University of California, Berkeley

  • Hai-En Tsai

    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  • Tobias M. Ostermayr

    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  • Kailtlin Deering

    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  • Jeroen van Tilborg

    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley 94720, USA

  • Anthony Gonsalves

    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    • LBL
    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley 94720, USA

  • Robert Ettelbrick

    • Bay Optics
    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  • Cameron Geddes

    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    • Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
    • Lawrence Berkeley Nat. Lab.
    • LBNL
    • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley 94720, USA