MRI: Acquisition of New Pump Lasers for Upgrade of Hercules Laser System to 500 TW

这笔拨款用于增加密歇根大学HERCULES激光设备的功率，以实现等离子体、激光和光学物理前沿领域的基础研究。这项研究将培育影响医学、能源和国家安全的新技术，以及从生物学到材料科学等广泛领域的科学应用。这项研究的具体应用包括开发用于癌症治疗的高能离子和伽马射线光束的紧密型激光源，高分辨率成像以及用于国土安全目的的核材料检测。这种激光系统的另一个潜在的主要应用是作为“桌面”电子加速器和x射线源。这种桌面系统的发展将是革命性的，因为它们将非常紧凑和相对便宜。在过去的十年里，密歇根大学的高功率激光系统已经成为研究生培训的重要设施。美国和国际研究人员和学生将继续参与研究项目，利用升级后的HERCULES设备提供的极端激光强度。这笔拨款将为密歇根大学超快光学科学中心的HERCULES激光系统的最后两个放大阶段采购两台新的泵浦激光器和相关设备。然后，HERCULES将以500太瓦的峰值功率（其现有能力的五倍）或50太瓦的峰值功率运行，重复频率增加到5赫兹。这些升级后的放大器将取代现有的两个“国产”泵浦激光系统，这些系统最近在性能和可靠性方面有所下降。HERCULES激光系统之前已经实现了世界上最高的聚焦激光强度，然而，这些激光器最令人兴奋的前沿之一是超越这一点-探索超相对论场中的等离子体动力学，观察辐射反应的影响和非线性量子电动力学对激光等离子体相互作用的影响。升级后的系统将使对这一未开发机制的研究成为可能。

This grant provides funding to increase the power of the HERCULES laser facility at the University of Michigan to enable fundamental research in frontier areas of plasma, laser and optical physics. This research will foster new technologies that impact medicine, energy and national security in addition to scientific applications across a very broad range of other fields: from biology to materials science. Particular applications of this research include the development of compact laser generated sources of energetic ion and gamma-ray beams for cancer treatment, high resolution imaging, and detection of nuclear materials for Homeland Security purposes. Another potential major application for this laser system is as a "table-top" electron accelerator and x-ray source. The development of such table-top systems will be transformative, since they would be very compact and relatively inexpensive. Over the past decade the high power laser systems at Michigan have become important facilities for graduate student training. US and international researchers and students will continue to take part in the research projects using the extreme laser intensities available with the upgraded HERCULES facility.This grant will enable acquisition of two new pump lasers and associated equipment for the final two amplification stages of the HERCULES laser system at the Center for Ultrafast Optical Science at the University of Michigan. HERCULES will then operate either at a peak power of 500 TW (five times its present capability) or at 50 TW with an increased repetition rate of 5 Hz. These upgraded amplifiers will replace two existing "home-built" pump laser systems which have recently degraded in performance and reliability. The HERCULES laser system has previously achieved the world's highest focused laser intensities, however one of the most exciting frontiers for these lasers is to go beyond this -- to explore the dynamics of plasma in ultra-relativistic fields and observe the effects of radiation reaction and the effects of nonlinear Quantum Electrodynamics on laser plasma interactions. Research in this unexplored regime will be made possible by the upgraded system.