Laser with phase conjugation for high intensity interactions

Abstract

We present the results of the experimental testing of the laser facility LAMBDA, created and built at the Institute of Experimental Physics of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center for generation of quasi-steady-state laser fields in microvolumes.The facility includes: a single mode generator of reference radiation (RR) producing about 10 mJ energy in a pulse of controlled length from 3 to 30 ns; a target chamber with an input objective focusing the RR beam to a micron-size spot, and a 280-mm-diameter parabolic mirror with the focal length also of 270 mm; a two-stage iodine amplifier with the small signal gain coefficient 3·105 per one pass, to the input of which radiation from the target chamber formed by the (microobjective + parabolic mirror) system is applied; a phase conjugating device with the system for the selection of the phase-conjugated component, which allows us to realize the pulse compression in the amplifier stages, and to provide the compensation of the optical aberrations after the second pass amplification and focusing of high-power radiation into the microvolume; a complex for diagnostics of plasma and laser radiation parameters.