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.

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