Direct acceleration of solid-density plasma bunch by ultraintense laser

The interaction of a petawatt laser with a small solid-density plasma bunch is studied by particle-in-cell simulation. It is shown that when irradiated by a laser of intensity >10(21) W/cm(2), a dense plasma bunch of micrometer size can be efficiently accelerated. The kinetic energy of the ions in the high-density region of the plasma bunch can exceed ten MeV at a density in the 10(23)-cm(-3) level. Having a flux density orders of magnitude higher than that of the traditional charged-particle pulses, the laser-accelerated plasma bunch can have a wide range of applications. In particular, such a dense energetic plasma bunch impinging on the compressed fuel in inertial fusion can significantly enhance the nuclear-reaction cross section and is thus a promising alternative for fast ignition.

Vacuum heating in the interaction of ultrashort, relativistically strong laser pulses with solid targets

An analytical fluid model for vacuum heating during the oblique incidence by an ultrashort ultraintense p-polarized laser on a solid-density plasma is proposed. The steepening of an originally smooth electron density profile as the electrons are pushed inward by the laser is included self-consistently. It is shown that the electrons being pulled out and then returned to the plasma at the interface layer by the wave field can lead to a phenomenon like wave breaking since the front part of the returning electrons always move slower than the trailing part. This can lead to heating of the plasma at the expense of the wave energy. An estimate for the efficiency of laser energy absorption by the vacuum heating is given. It is also found that for the incident laser intensity parameter, a(L)> 0.5, the absorption rate peaks at an incident angle 45 degrees-52 degrees and it reaches a maximum of 30% at a(L)approximate to 1.5.

FUZZY SOLID SETS FOR MATHEMATICAL MORPHOLOGY AND OPTICAL IMPLEMENTATION

Fuzzy sets in the subject space are transformed to fuzzy solid sets in an increased object space on the basis of the development of the local umbra concept. Further, a counting transform is defined for reconstructing the fuzzy sets from the fuzzy solid sets, and the dilation and erosion operators in mathematical morphology are redefined in the fuzzy solid-set space. The algebraic structures of fuzzy solid sets can lead not only to fuzzy logic but also to arithmetic operations. Thus a fuzzy solid-set image algebra of two image transforms and five set operators is defined that can formulate binary and gray-scale morphological image-processing functions consisting of dilation, erosion, intersection, union, complement, addition, subtraction, and reflection in a unified form. A cellular set-logic array architecture is suggested for executing this image algebra. The optical implementation of the architecture, based on area coding of gray-scale values, is demonstrated. (C) 1995 Optical Society of America

Solid-state optical parallel morphological processor

Based on birefringence, a building-block stacking technique is suggested in this paper. A solid-state optical morphological processor module is thus developed, which is an integration of a beam array generator submodule, an optical connector submodule, and a Pockels readout optical modulator. It is shown that the technique is compact in construction, simple for fabrication, and insensitive to the environment.

Wave-front analysis method of circular aperture sampling for collimation testing

A new type of wave-front analysis method for the collimation testing of laser beams is proposed. A concept of wave-front height is defined, and, on this basis, the wave-front analysis method of circular aperture sampling is introduced. The wave-front height of the tested noncollimated wave can be estimated from the distance between two identical fiducial diffraction planes of the sampled wave, and then the divergence is determined. The design is detailed, and the experiment is demonstrated. The principle and experiment results of the method are presented. Owing to the simplicity of the method and its low cost, it is a promising method for checking the collimation of a laser beam with a large divergence. © 2005 Optical Society of America.

All solid-state, injection-seeded Ti:sapphire ring laser

In this letter, we present an all solid-state, injection-seeded Ti:sapphire laser. The laser is pumped by a laser diode pumped frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser, and injection-seeded by an external cavity laser diode with the wavelength between 770 and 780 nm. The single longitude mode and the doubling efficiency of the laser are obtained after injection seeding. The experimental setup and relative results are reported. It is a good candidate laser source for mobile differential absorption lidar (DIAL) system.

A Q-swicthed all-solid-state single-longitudinal-mode laser with adjustable pulse-width and high repetition rate

A single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) laser-diode pumped Nd: YAG laser with adjustable pulse width is developed by using the techniques of pre-lasing and changing polarization of birefingent crystal. The Q-switching voltage is triggered by the peak of the pre-lasing pulse to achieve the higher stability of output pulse energy. The output energy of more than 1 mJ is obtained with output energy stability of 3% (rms) at 100 Hz. The pulse-width can be adjusted from 30 ns to 300 ns by changing the Q-switching voltage. The probability of putting out single-longitudinal-mode pulses is almost 100%. The laser can be run over four hours continually without mode hopping.

Dynamic analysis of V-folded cavity for TEM00 operation of end-pumped solid-state laser

Based on graphic analysis design method of optical resonator, a simple design expression of V-folded cavity of end-pumped solid-state lasers with TEM00 operation is described, which satisfies two criterias of the resonator design. We give numerical simulation of spot size as a function of thermal focal length using this design approach whose advantages are validated experimentally.

A kilowatt diode-pumped solid-state heat-capacity double-slab laser

A kilowatt diode-pumped solid state heat capacity laser is fabricated with a double-slab Nd:YAG. Using the theoretical model of heat capacity laser output laser characteristics, the relationships between the output power, temperature and time are obtained. The slab is 59 x 40 4.5mm(3) in size. The average pump power is 11.2kW, the repetition rate is 1kHz, and the duty cycle 20%. During the running time of 1s, the output energy of the laser has a fluctuation with the maximal output energy at 2.06J, and the maximal output average power is 2.06kW. At the end of the second, the output energy declines to about 50% compared to the beginning. The thermal effects can be improved with one slab cooled by water. The experimental results are consistent with calculation data.

Depolarization loss compensated resonator for electro-optic Q-switched solid-state laser

A novel laser resonator for compensating depolarization loss that is due to thermally induced birefringence in active rod is reported. As this new structure being applied to an electro-optic Q-switched LIDA side-pumped Nd:YAG laser operating at a repetition rate of 1000 Hz, substantial reduction in depolarization loss has been observed, the output pulse energy is improved about 56% from that of a traditional resonator without compensation structure. With incident pump energy of 450 mJ per pulse, linearly polarized output energy of 30 mJ per pulse is achieved, the pulse duration is less than 15 ns, and the peak power of pulse is about 2 MW. The extinction ratio of laser beam is better than 10:1, and the beam divergence is 1.3 mrad with beam diameter of around 2.5 mm. (c) 2006 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Solid-state NMR study of bioactive binary borosilicate glasses

A series of binary borosilicate glasses prepared by the sol-gel method are shown to be bioactive. Tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) and trimethylborate (TMB) in acidic medium are used to prepare xB(2)O(3)center dot(1-x)SiO2 glass systems for x = 0.045-0.167. The formation of a layer of apatite-like mineral on the glass surface becomes apparent after soaking in simulated body fluid for 48 h. We have measured the B-11-B-11 homonuclear second moments of the borosilicate glasses and inferred that no macroscopic phase separation occurred in our glasses. The B-11 chemical shift data also show that the formation of clustered boroxol rings is negligible in our glass system. Although the bioactivity of our borosilicate glasses is less than that of CaO-SiO2 sol-gel glasses, these simple binary systems could be taken as reference glass systems for the search of new bioactive borosilicate glasses. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.