A proton and neutron beam polarimeter at SATURNE II

A beam polarimeter using CH₂ and carbon targets has been used to measure proton and neutron beam polarization in the energy range 0.4–2.8 GeV in one of the beam lines at the SATURNE II accelerator. The analyzing power for np-scattering is calibrated against the known analyzing power for pp-scattering by using the polarized deuteron beam to measure simultaneously the asymmetries for scattering of quasifree protons and neutrons in the deuterons. A low level of systematic errors is achieved by pulse to pulse polarization reversal at the ion source of the accelerator, and by measuring left and right scattering simultaneously. The detailed operation procedure and the beam polarizations measured during all experiments from 1981 to 1984 are presented.     

准分子激光前端光束形态控制技术研究

在高功率准分子激光系统中,前端光束形态直接决定着系统输出的光束形态,并直接与靶物理需求密切相关.主要介绍了窄脉冲准分子激光前端光束形态控制的实验研究进展,基于散射法获得了满足系统要求的部分相干源,直接利用三束激光脉冲堆积获得了平顶整形脉冲,并结合放大实验结果对上述实现方法进行了评价分析.     

Experimental and theoretical study of a laser-diode-pumped passively Q-switched intracavity-frequency-doubled Nd:GdVO4/KTP red laser with V:YAG saturable absorber

A laser-diode-pumped passively Q-switched intracavity-frequency-doubled Nd:GdVO4/KTP red laser with V:YAG saturable absorber is realized in a V-type resonator. The dependences of the pulse repetition rate, pulse width, single-pulse energy, and peak power on the incident pump power are measured and contrasted. By assuming the intracavity photon density and the initial population-inversion density to be Gaussian spatial distributions, the space-dependent rate equations of this laser are given. The numerical solutions of the rate equations are consistent with the experimental results. In order to optimize the described system, the variations of the pulse width, peak power, single-pulse energy, and laser efficiency with the initial transmission of the saturable absorber and the ratio of the laser beam radius to the pump beam radius are also calculated, respectively.     

Spatial control of femtosecond laser system output with submicroradian accuracy

A system for the course control and spatial stabilization of the output beam of a femtosecond laser system is realized. An accuracy of 0.5 microrad is achieved long term in a laboratory environment for a beam with an initially daily deviation of more than 40 microrad. The application and importance of the method is illustrated for laser pulse shortening in a hollow waveguide resulting in a stable output power and an 8 fs pulse duration for more than 10 h operation time.     

High speed tuning mechanism for CO2 lidar systems

A method for rapidly tuning lasers is presented. The system utilizes a rotating eight-sided mirror and a fixed grating. It is demonstrated that the entire CO2 lasing spectrum can be tuned at effective rates of up to 400 Hz. It is shown that, although the pulse energy is diminished as the tuning rate is increased, the loss comes from the tail of the pulse, and the peak power is almost unchanged. In addition, the tuning method preserves the spatial beam profile while contributing a minimum of beam steering.     

Measurement of nonlinear refractive index coefficient using emission spectrum of filament induced by gigawatt-femtosecond pulse in BK7 glass

A beam of 33 fs laser pulse with peak power of 15-40 GW was employed to explore a convenient method to determine the nonlinear refractive index coefficient of an optical glass. It is rare to investigate nonlinearities of optical glass with such an extreme ultrashort and powerful laser pulse. According to our method, only a single beam and a few experimental apparatuses are necessary to measure the nonlinear refractive index coefficient. The results from our method are in reasonable agreement with the others, which demonstrates that this new method works well, and the nonlinear refractive index coefficient is independent of measuring technology. Meanwhile, according to our results and those obtained by others in different laser power ranges, it seems that the nonlinear refractive index coefficient has a weak dependence on the laser peak power.     

Diode-pumped Nd:YAG laser with 38 W average power and user-selectable, flat-in-time subnanosecond pulses

A diode-pumped injection-seeded Nd:YAG laser system with an average output power of 38 W is described. The laser operates at 300 Hz with pulse energies up to 130 mJ. The temporal pulse shape is nominally flat in time and the pulse width is user selectable from 350 to 600 ps. In addition, the spatial profile of the beam is near top hat with contrast <10%.     

Miniaturized, high-power diode-pumped, Q-switched Nd:YAG laser oscillator-amplifier

A miniaturized, passively Q-switched Nd:YAG laser oscillator-power amplifier is reported, which is axially pumped by a compact, fiber-coupled, high-power, quasi-cw diode laser module. The pumping intensity of the oscillator crystal can be adjusted independently of the pumping intensity of the amplifier. This ensures that the oscillator pulse enters the amplifier when its maximum population density is reached. Furthermore, pulse bursts can be generated with a definite, adjustable number of single pulses. Maximum pulse energies of 8.4?and 22?mJ were achieved for a single pulse and for a pulse burst, respectively, at a pumping power of 470?W. The pulse widths were 2?ns, whereas the beam quality corresponded to M2<1.5. The laser is appropriate for scaling the power to the 10?MW range. Operation by using a 100?m pumping fiber was demonstrated.     

Voltage-tuned relativistic backward wave oscillator

A relativistic backward wave oscillator for the 10-GHz range with the oscillation frequency tuned within about 5% by changing the accelerating voltage from 600 to 350 kV has been developed. Discrete variations in the voltage and the corresponding frequency tuning from pulse to pulse is rapidly performed by changing the anode-cathode distance in the vacuum diode without breaking vacuum in the working volume. During this, the electron beam power remains almost constant, while the output microwave power varies within 0.4–0.8 GW. The introduction of a dielectric cylinder into the accelerating gap provides a smooth voltage drop from 600 to 350 kV with the corresponding frequency tuning during a 20-ns pulse.     

High-intensity multi-bunch beam generation by a photo-cathode RF gun

A multi-bunch photo-cathode RF gun system has been developed as an electron source for the production of intense quasi-monochromatic X-rays based on inverse Compton scattering. The desired multi-bunch beam is 100 bunches/pulse with a total charge of 500 nC and a bunch spacing of 2.8 ns. We modified the gun cavity of a ‘BNL-type IV’ RF gun to allow a CsTe cathode plug in the end plate. The system uses a four-dipole chicane beam line to allow the injection of laser light normal to the cathode surface. We compensate the gun cavity beam loading caused by the high-intensity multi-bunch electron beam by injecting the laser pulse before RF power has filled the cavity. We have achieved a total intensity of 220 nC in 100 bunches with a bunch-to-bunch energy spread under 1.3% (peak-to-peak). This paper concentrates on experiments to generate the high-intensity multi-bunch beam with compensation of the bunch-to-bunch energy spread due to heavy beam loading.     

Picosecond pulse generation and its simulation in a nonlinear optical mirror mode-locked laser

A nonlinear mirror composed of a lithium triborate crystal and a dichroic output coupler is used to passively mode lock an Nd:YVO4 laser that is pumped by a diode laser array. A mode-locked output power of 3.2 W, a repetition rate of 178 MHz, a pulse width of 8.4 ps, and a beam quality parameter (M2) of 1.27 are obtained at 1064 nm for a pump power of 10.0 W. The numerical simulation for the steady-state pulse width agrees well with the bandwidth-limited value. A double-pass average gain g(ave) is defined by considering the constancy of the output energy. In the simulation g(ave) is kept as a free parameter, and its value required for the bandwidth-limited pulse is found to be 0.047, whereas its calculated value, based on our definition, is 0.057.     

Generation of a superstable Lorentzian pulse train with a high repetition frequency based on a Fabry-Perot resonator integrated with an electro-optic phase modulator

A simple technique for converting a continuous-wave laser beam into a stable Lorentzian pulse train with a high repetition frequency is demonstrated experimentally. We generated transform-limited pulses of up to 40 GHz, which were composed of higher-order sidebands produced by a Fabry-Perot resonator integrated with an electro-optic phase modulator (EOM). The rf power supplied to the EOM determines the pulse width in the pulse train. This approach enables the pulse width to be continuously tuned from 2.1 to 7.0 ps at the same repetition frequency without any wavelength shift. Furthermore, we experimentally evaluated the stability of the pulse train's amplitude and obtained stable bit-error-free operation at 9.95 GHz.     

Development of a chirped pulse amplification laser with zigzag slab Nd:glass amplifiers dedicated to x-ray laser research

A chirped pulse amplification laser with zigzag slab Nd:glass amplifiers dedicated to x-ray laser research is described. The laser provides a 1.6 ps duration pulse with approximately 7 J energy at a repetition rate of 0.1 Hz. In the power amplifier system, laser light is amplified in a two-step manner: The first step is image-relayed multipass amplification up to approximately 1 J with a 10 mm x 10 mm beam. The second step is double-pass amplification up to >10 J with a 10 mm x 90 mm beam. By using this laser system, the saturated amplification of the Ni-like Ag laser at a wavelength of 13.9 nm has been successfully demonstrated.     

An S-band vircator with premodulated electron beam based on a compact generator with inductive energy storage

An experimental S-band vircator with premodulated electron beam based on a compact generator with inductive energy storage is described. The vircator radiation power was 300 MW at a power efficiency of about 5% and a pulse duration of 50 ns. The oscillation frequency, determined by the electrodynamic system parameters, remained unchanged during the pulse.     

Experimental investigation of graphite explosive-emission cathodes operating in a periodic pulse regime

We have studied the electron emission from graphite cathodes under the action of voltage pulses with an amplitude of up to 300 kV, a pulse duration of 10^?9 s, and a pulse repetition frequency of 1–3.5 kHz. The magnetically insulated electron beam had a peak power of up to 600 MW at an average power of 1–3 kW. The dynamics of emission current delay was studied in relation to the charge transferred by the beam and to the state of the cathode surface (studied by scanning electron microscopy). It is established that smoothening of the microrelief leads to degradation of the cathode emissivity, which can be compensated by increasing the pulse repetition rate above a certain critical level.     

The influence of nonlinear fields on miniature hydrophone calibration using the planar scanning technique

Miniature polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) hydrophones used in determining the power and intensity output of ultrasonic fields, including those radiated from diagnostic ultrasound equipment, were calibrated under a variety of field conditions using the planar scanning technique. A diagnostic B-scan piston-type transducer was used as a source, and the output intensity (spatial-peak pulse-average, or SPPA) was varied from 2 to 30 W/cm(2) while the total power was kept constant. The higher-intensity waveforms were significantly nonlinear in the focal region of the source. When the lateral beam profiles of the source (as measured by the hydrophone to be calibrated) were determined by positive-peak-detecting the ultrasonic pulse, the calibrated pressure sensitivity of the hydrophone systematically decreased as the field became progressively more nonlinear. When the beam profiles were measured using the pulse intensity integral, no systematic dependence of the calibration on field linearity was noted. These results imply that measured values of power and intensity of ultrasound diagnostic equipment may be dependent on the methodology utilized to map the lateral beam profiles of the transducer being measured, and the extent of nonlinear effects in the field under characterization.     

Midinfrared laser source with high power and beam quality

A simple scheme for generation of high power in the midinfrared is demonstrated. By using a 15 W thulium-doped fiber laser emitting at 1907 nm to pump a Q-switched Ho:YAG laser, we obtained 9.8 W at 2096 nm at a 20 kHz pulse repetition rate with excellent beam quality. The output of this laser was used to pump a doubly resonant zinc germanium phosphide based optical parametric oscillator, and we obtained 5.1 W average power in the 3-5 microm range with M2 approximately = 1.8.     

Relativistic Cherenkov microwave oscillator without a guiding magnetic field

A relativistic Cherenkov microwave oscillator without a guiding magnetic field has been designed, constructed, and tested in which a continuous cylindrical electron beam propagates in a short (L ≈ 3λ, λ being the radiation wavelength) resonant slow-wave structure. The electron beam is energy-modulated at the input of the interaction space, which provides conditions for the energy exchange at a wave phase velocity exceeding the particle velocity. The effective beam-wave coupling is provided by a nearly homogeneous profile of the longitudinal electric field component of the synchronous wave in the interaction space cross section. The efficiency of power conversion from high-current electron beam to electromagnetic radiation at E₀₁ mode is about 8% at a maximum output pulse radiation power of 1.2 ± 0.3 GW and a working frequency of 4.05 GHz.     

Pulse shaping fiber laser at 1.5 μm

In this paper we present, for the first time to our knowledge, a new pulse shaping technology (modulation schemes for seed laser) used to mitigate pulse narrowing effect and SBS effect in a high energy Er:Yb codoped fiber master oscillator power amplifier system at 1.5 μm to obtain longer pulse duration and higher energy. An average power of over 1.3 W and a pulse energy of over 0.13 mJ were obtained at 10 kHz repetition rate with a pulse duration of 200 ns and near-diffraction-limited beam quality (M(2)<1.2).     

Towards a plasma wake-field acceleration-based linear collider

A proposal for a linear collider based on an advanced accelerator scheme, plasma wake-field acceleration in the extremely nonlinear regime, is discussed. In this regime, many of the drawbacks associated with preservation of beam quality during acceleration in plasma are mitigated. The scaling of all beam and wake parameters with respect to plasma wavelength is examined. Experimental progress towards high-gradient acceleration in this scheme is reviewed. We then examine a linear collider based on staging of many modules of plasma wake-field accelerator, all driven by a high average current, pulse compressed, RF photoinjector-fed linac. Issue of beam loading, efficiency, optimized stage length, and power efficiency are discussed. A proof-of-principle experimental test of the staging concept at the Fermilab test facility is discussed.