Laser operations
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The fundamental role of Laser Operations is to support the Orion facility. Currently, that involves installing and commissioning the components and subsystems that make up each beamline. Once Orion has been fully commissioned, the emphasis will move to ensuring that day-to-day shot-operations run smoothly, allied to which will be an ongoing programme of laser development.
Shot-operations covers a wide range of activities. The staff on the laser team tune the output of the laser, in terms of laser energy as well as temporal pulselength and shape, to meet the appropriate experimental requirements. The operators align the laser to target, set up appropriate laser diagnostics, fire the system and record data on shot performance.
In addition, Operations staff also perform routine maintenance of the laser systems, such as diagnosing faults as and when they arise and replacing or repairing faulty components. Laser development activities, where possible, take place in parallel to the experimental campaigns to maximise system availability.
The expertise in laser physics which resides within this team allows a continual rolling programme of incremental system improvements to be undertaken, such as changing the system architecture to multi-pass and converting the backlighter to operate as with chirped-pulse amplification (CPA).
Staff are also extensively involved in the laser physics design of Orion, with research topics including:
- Optical pulse generation
- Optical system design
- Laser chain diagnostics
- CPA physics
- Analysis of full system performance