Post-Compressor Adaptive Optics at PHELIXONLINE ONLY

Ultrahigh-Intensity lasers have proven to be indispensable tools in plasma physics for a wide range of experiments. However, as properties of the focal spot govern the laser-plasma interaction, fluctuations in the on-shot wavefront reduce the repeatability of experimental results and therefore limit the value of the findings. Compensating for these fluctuations in single-shot laser systems remains challenging up to this day, partly due to the necessity to do so after the pulse compression stage to avoid generating spatio-temporal couplings in the compressor.

An effort to improve this situation at PHELIX was the setup of a full post-compressor adaptive optics system. Facing the challenges of large peak intensities and tight space constraints we implemented an ultra-compact, post-compressor beam diagnostic close to the target chamber to both compensate the aberrations prior to the shot using a mechanical deformable mirror and measure the on-shot wavefront for verification. In conjunction with an in-house developed calibration routine, we achieved intensities in excess of 10$^{21}$ W/cm$^{2}$ on the target for the first time at PHELIX. This claim is supported by an experiment, where the transmission through foil targets was observed to be significantly higher when using the wavefront correction routine prior to the shot.

Zoom-Meeting
https://gsi-fair.zoom.us/j/96629963798

Meeting-ID: 966 2996 3798
Kenncode: 130302