This report describes an active solid target positioning device for driving plasma mirrors with high repetition rate ultra-high intensity lasers. The position of the solid target surface with respect to the laser focus is optically monitored and mechanically controlled on the nm scale to ensure reproducible interaction conditions for each shot at arbitrary repetition rate. We demonstrate the ta...

We demonstrate a Kerr-lens mode-locked Ti:sapphire oscillator that generates 130-nJ, 26-fs and 220-nJ, 30-fs pulses at a repetition rate of 11 MHz. The generation of stable broadband, high-energy pulses from an extended-cavity oscillator is achieved by the use of chirped multilayer mirrors to produce a small net positive dispersion over a broad spectral range. The resultant chirped picosecond p...

The French-Italian interferometric gravitational wave detector VIRGO is currently being commissioned. Its principal instrument is a Michelson laser interferometer with 3 km long optical cavities in the arms and a power-recycling mirror. The interferometer resides in an ultra-high vacuum system and the mirrors are suspended from multistage pendulums for seismic isolation. This type of laser inte...

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• We conducted a multiphase series of laboratory experiments to explore the adaptive optics compensation of a laser beam distorted by strong thermal blooming. Our experimental approach was to create on a small, low-power beam the same phase distortion that would be experienced by a large, high-power beam propagating through the atmosphere and to apply phase compensation via deformable mirrors. ...

We present experimental investigations on the generation of radially polarized laser beams excited by a ring-shaped pump intensity distribution in combination with polarizing grating waveguide mirrors in an Yb:YAG thin-disk laser resonator. Hollow optical fiber components were implemented in the pump beam path to transform the commonly used flattop pumping distribution into a ring-shaped distri...

A Grazing Incidence Metal Mirror (GIMM) is a chief candidate for beam delivery for Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE). The goal for GIMM survival is greater than 3 10 8 laser pulses with 5 J/cm 2 laser fluence normal to the incident beam. Laserinduced damage to metal mirrors is primarily a thermomechanical process. Long-term exposure leads to microstructural evolution analogous to fatigue. We have pe...

As the turbine industries need to manufacture turbine blades made of martensitic stainless steel AISI 420 with high toughness and wear resistance, local laser hardening has become more and more important. In this research, surface of the samples was initially hardened by high-power pulsed laser beam; then, optimum parameters of hardening were calculated and wear resistance of surface hardened s...