Stuart, B. | Engineering Papers

DOE OSTI2023

Modeling of the Jupiter Lase Facility Using Virtual Beamline ++ (Vbl++) Code

The Jupiter Laser Facility (JLF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a mid-scale laser facility, with three different laser platforms: Janus (Target Area 1), Titan, and COMET. To help the facility and its users better understand the laser performance, a model of Janus and Titan has been developed using the Virtual Beamline ++ code (VBL++), which was initially developed by LLNL to model the National Ignition Facility beamlines and predict their performance.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2022

Single-shot measurements of pulse-front tilt in intense ps laser pulses and its effect on accelerated electron and ion beam characteristics (invited)

Here we report recent single-shot spatiotemporal measurements of laser pulses, including pulse-front tilt (PFT) and spatial chirp, taken at the Compact Multipulse Terawatt laser at the Jupiter Laser Facility in Livermore, CA. STRIPED FISH, a device that measures the complete 3D electric field of fs to ps laser pulses on a single shot, was adapted to near infrared for these measurements. We present the design of the instrument used for these experiments, the on-shot measurements of systematic high-order PFT, and shot-to-shot variations in the measurements of spatiotemporal couplings. Finally, we simulate the effect of PFT in target normal sheath acceleration experiments. These simulations showed that pulse front tilt can steer hot electrons, shape the distribution of the accelerating sheath field, and increase the variability of cutoff energy in the resulting proton spectra. While these effects may be detrimental to experimental accuracy if the pulse front tilt is left unmeasured, hot electron steering shows promise for precision manipulation of the particle source for a range of applications, including irradiation of secondary targets for opacity measurements, radiography, or neutron generation.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗