The Trident Laser consisted of three main laser chains (A,B, and C) of
neodymium glass amplifiers (or Nd:glass), two identical longpulse beams lines, A&B, and a third beamline, C, that could be operated either in longpulse or in
chirped pulse amplification (CPA) shortpulse mode.[2]
Longpulse beams A and B, were laser chains capable of delivering up to ~500 J at 1054 nm, which were frequency doubled to 527 nm and ~200 J depending on pulse duration; the pulse duration could be varied from 100 ps to 1 μs, and was a unique capability of any large laser in the US (and possibly the world). The third laser chain, beamline C, could produce up to ~200 J at 1054 nm, or could be frequency doubled to 527 nm at ~100 J in the longpulse mode with the same pulse duration variability as beams A and B; or could be used in the Trident enhancement configuration allowing the ~200 J beam to be compressed via CPA to ~600 fs and ~100 J, producing powers on the scale of a quarter
petawatt(~200 TW) with a host of laser and plasma diagnostics.[3] A 100 mJ 500 fs probe beamline is also available.
The 200TW shortpulse ultra high-intensity laser system is currently a world record holder in ion acceleration energy with Target Normal Sheath Acceleration mechanism,[4] producing protons at 58.5 MeV from a flat-foil,[5] beating the record of the NOVA Petawatt laser back in 1999;[6] and 67.5 MeV protons from micro-cone targets.[7][8] Trident delivers Petawatt performance at a fifth of the power. The 200TW or C beam is capable of focusing down to less than 10 micrometers in diameter to reach laser field intensities (irradiance) of ~2x1020 W/cm2, producing protons over 50 MeV[9] as well as high quality, high energy xrays.[10] The interaction can be diagnosed with a Backscatter Focal Diagnostics [11] similar to a Full Aperture Back-scatter (FABS)[12] diagnostic at the
National Ignition Facility. A new front-end for the laser employs a 2nd order cleaning technique, dubbed SPOPA (for Short-Pulse Optical Parametric Amplification) cleaning, which reduces the contrast to better than 10−9 ASE intensity ratio, making it one of the cleanest ultra high-intensity high-power laser in the world.[13]
The laser was being used for
Fast Ignition ICF research, warm dense matter experiments, materials dynamics studies, and laser-matter interaction research, including particle acceleration, x-ray backlighting and laser-plasma instabilities (LPI).
^Moncur, N. K.; Johnson, R. P.; Watt, R. G.; Gibson, R. B. (20 July 1995). "Trident: a versatile high-power Nd:glass laser facility for inertial confinement fusion experiments". Applied Optics. 34 (21): 4274–83.
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^Flippo, K. A.; Workman, J.; Gautier, D. C.; Letzring, S.; Johnson, R. P.; Shimada, T. (1 January 2008). "Scaling laws for energetic ions from the commissioning of the new Los Alamos National Laboratory 200 TW Trident laser". Review of Scientific Instruments. 79 (10): 10E534.
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^Snavely, R.; Key, M.; Hatchett, S.; Cowan, T.; Roth, M.; Phillips, T.; Stoyer, M.; Henry, E.; Sangster, T.; Singh, M.; Wilks, S.; MacKinnon, A.; Offenberger, A.; Pennington, D.; Yasuike, K.; Langdon, A.; Lasinski, B.; Johnson, J.; Perry, M.; Campbell, E. (1 October 2000). "Intense High-Energy Proton Beams from Petawatt-Laser Irradiation of Solids". Physical Review Letters. 85 (14): 2945–2948.
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^Workman, J.; Cobble, J.; Flippo, K.; Gautier, D. C.; Letzring, S. (1 January 2008). "High-energy, high-resolution x-ray imaging on the Trident short-pulse laser facility". Review of Scientific Instruments. 79 (10): 10E905.
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^Shah, Rahul C.; Johnson, Randall P.; Shimada, Tsutomu; Flippo, Kirk A.; Fernandez, Juan C.; Hegelich, B. M. (1 August 2009). "High-temporal contrast using low-gain optical parametric amplification". Optics Letters. 34 (15): 2273–5.
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^Schaeffer, D. B.; Everson, E. T.; Winske, D.; Constantin, C. G.; Bondarenko, A. S.; Morton, L. A.; Flippo, K. A.; Montgomery, D. S.; Gaillard, S. A.; Niemann, C. (1 January 2012). "Generation of magnetized collisionless shocks by a novel, laser-driven magnetic piston". Physics of Plasmas. 19 (7): 070702.
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^Flippo, Kirk A.; Gaillard, Sandrine A.; Cowan, Joseph S.; Gautier, D. Cort; Mucino, J. Eduardo; Lowenstern, Mariano E. (1 November 2011). "Overcritical to Underdense Plasma in Under 1 μm: 150 TW Laser-Thin-Target Interactions for Particle Acceleration". IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science. 39 (11): 2428–2429.
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^Kline, J. L.; Montgomery, D. S.; Flippo, K. A.; Johnson, R. P.; Rose, H. A.; Shimada, T.; Williams, E. A. (1 January 2008). "Using a short-pulse diffraction-limited laser beam to probe filamentation of a random phase plate smoothed beam". Review of Scientific Instruments. 79 (10): 10F551.
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