MRI: Acquisition of a 100 Terawatt Laser Upgrade for Application to Basic and Applied Plasma Physics

MRI：获得 100 太瓦激光升级，用于基础和应用等离子体物理

• 批准号: 2215871
• 负责人: Howard Milchberg
• 金额: $ 113.54万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-15 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2215871&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MRI; Acquisition; 100; Terawatt; Laser

This project will upgrade the existing laser system at the University of Maryland to increase its output pulse energy by a factor of four, making possible a wide range of relativistic physics experiments on a tabletop. The experiments will be run mainly by students and postdocs and will include the types of experiments typically done at much larger laser facilities. These experiments are of both fundamental and practical interest for the development and application of advanced charged particle accelerators, intense laser pulse propagation, and ultra-high field nonlinear optics and plasma physics. The hands-on student and postdoc training obtained in running and maintaining the laser system, and performing and analyzing the experiments, will be invaluable for the development of a workforce in technical areas of increasing importance for science, industry and national defense.Based on recent experiments employing a Maryland-developed laser acceleration scheme at a petawatt-class laser facility, it is expected that the upgraded laser system at the University of Maryland will be able to accelerate electrons to over one billion electron volts (1 GeV), corresponding to nearly the speed of light. This will make possible tabletop x-ray and gamma ray light sources and their applications. In parallel efforts, the increased laser energy of the upgraded system will drive the development of efficient sources of radiation in hard-to-access wavelength regimes, such as terahertz radiation. It will also make possible experiments in laboratory astrophysics, including a new class of magnetic reconnection experiments in the relativistic regime.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目将升级马里兰州大学现有的激光系统，使其输出脉冲能量增加四倍，从而有可能在桌面上进行广泛的相对论物理实验。 实验将主要由学生和博士后进行，并将包括通常在更大的激光设施中进行的实验类型。这些实验对于先进的带电粒子加速器、强激光脉冲传输、超高场非线性光学和等离子体物理的发展和应用都具有重要的基础和实际意义。在运行和维护激光系统以及执行和分析实验方面获得的实践学生和博士后培训对于科学，工业和国防日益重要的技术领域的劳动力的发展将是非常宝贵的。根据最近在petawatt级激光设施上采用马里兰开发的激光加速方案的实验，预计马里兰州大学的升级激光系统将能够将电子加速到超过10亿电子伏（1GeV），相当于接近光速。这将使桌面X射线和伽马射线光源及其应用成为可能。与此同时，升级后的系统增加的激光能量将推动开发难以获取的波长范围内的有效辐射源，如太赫兹辐射。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。