E5 Experimental Room

Contact Person: Mihail Cernaianu [ mihail.cernaianueli-np.ro ]

The E5 experimental area has been successfully commissioned and set in operation by this year. For the first user call, the system is optimized for running short focal experiments with a single beam, as the two beams synchronization is not yet available.

Laser Parameters

* One beam available as standard (beam B or A) at this point. Two-beam experiment configurations will be accommodated in the future. When two beam experiments will be made available, the short and long parabolic mirrors will focus the beams in the main interaction chamber, C1. Please contact the local coordinator for detailed drawing of the possible configurations.

Experimental Chambers

  • C1 (interaction chamber)
    • The C1 chamber is about 2 m in diameter and about 1.4 m tall.

Main Experimental Geometries

  • Three large vacuum chambers have been built and installed, denominated C1, C2, C3, along with turning boxes for the beams transport. The C1 chamber is the main interaction chamber, while the other two are used to deliver the beam for the short focal (C2) and the beam for the long focal (C3) into the interaction chamber (C1), and also allow for further setup to be installed (e.g., waveplates, laser back reflection monitoring) [D. Doria et al. 2020, K. A. Tanaka et al. 2020].
  • Optical tables are available outside, near the chambers.
Figure 1. CAD model of the E5 experimental area.

Figure 2: Top view of the experimental area E5: C2, C3, and the main interact ion chamber C1 are visible in the picture.

Figure 3: Photo of C1 chamber.

Commissioning results

On the second half of 2021, the commissioning of the 1 PW area, E5, started. The campaign was centred on the characterization of one of the two arms of the HPLS. The experiment focused on the laser-driven acceleration of ions, with the aim of testing the performance of the 1 PW laser system and the readiness of the experimental area for such type of experiment with solid targets (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Radiochromic film stack (a) and Thomson parabola (b) signals obtained by shooting 19 J laser beam via Plasma Mirror onto a diamond-like carbon target 380 nm thick.

Laser alignment and target manipulation:

  • Internal Injection Alignment Laser: CW 632-800nm, 150mm dia.
  • Linear/Circular Polarization: Mica waveplates
  • 5X to 40X objectives alignment system, 1μm spatial resolution target motion
  • Deformable Mirror
  • Single Plasma Mirror
  • Shack-Hartmann wavefront sensor /100 R.M.S. 32x40 px

Laser diagnostics:

  • Contrast measurement
  • Laser Diagnostics: Far-Field, Near-Field, energy, spectrum, pulse duration measurement (FROG), back-reflection monitor at full power

Particle detection:

  • Detector Stack: 1’’x 1’’, 2’’x 2’’up to 100 MeV proton (Radiochromic film, CR39)
  • Thomson Parabolas: up to 60 MeV, 8% res. @ 60 MeV, Image plate detector (optical coupling optional for online detection)
  • Optical plasma probe (as a pick-up from the main laser beam): 1w or 2w, 1’’ dia. and up to 100 mJ with pulse duration as the main laser beam, for Interferometry and Shadowgraphy.
  • e- Spectrometer: for low energy electron up to 10s MeV
  • e- Spectrometer: for high energy electron up to 2 GeV
  • Streak camera: VIS, 1 ps resolution
  • Optical spectrometer: ANDOR Shamrock (VIS), UV-Vis-NIR spectrometer with optical fiber
  • Pin-hole cameras: UV-X-ray, ~ 10 to ~ 100 μm resolution (in preparation)

Triggers

Cleanroom Requirements

  • • The experimental area has not been certified but as a cleanness equivalent to ISO8, and an ISO7 soft-wall cleanroom is also present in the area. All components brought in by users for the experiment must observe these standards.