Design of an optical diagnostic suite for the University of Maryland High-Energy Plasma Laboratory

The High-Energy Plasma Laboratory at the University of Maryland is currently being designed and constructed as a user facility devoted to high-energy-density (HED) and laser produced plasma physics research. Optical diagnostics—including angular filter refractometry (AFR) [1,2], interferometry [3], and shadowgraphy [1,3,4]—will be used as nonperturbative methods to measure plasma density. In this work, we present a preliminary design for the diagnostic suite that includes the collection, collimation, and imaging systems. Ray trajectory calculations in the geometrical optics limit inform the placement of optical components, and a Desmos-based simulation was created to visualize the optical paths and verify the design. Synthetic diagnostics were developed to simulate the instrument response for various density profiles.

[1] D. Haberberger et al., Phys. Plasmas 21, 056304 (2014).

[2] B. McCluskey et al., submitted, arXiv:2508.05837 (2025).

[3] D. Batani et al., J.Fusion Energy 38, 299–314 (2019).

[4] K.V. Lezhnin et al., Phys. Plasmas 32, 022701 (2025).