Although, the main mandate of the Laser Plasma Laboratory is to carry out studies in laser-matter interaction, since the laser systems required for such studies were not available commercially (until recent advent of Ti:sapphire based table top terawatt laser systems), the Laboratory has set up four high power solid state Nd:glass laser chains for producing plasma for laser-plasma interaction studies.

These systems include:

1. 1 GW ( 3 J in 3ns) nanosecond laser (0.53 micron) chain for long pulse interaction. This laser was comissioned in 1994 and was a fully home-made laser system. It was the main work-horse of the lab for many years before other lasers were made. This laser chain has been decomissioned in 2007.

2. 50 GW ( 1 J in 25ps) picosecond laser (1.054 micron) for shorter pulse interaction. This laser chain was commissioned in 1999. It has a commercial Nd:YLF ascillator followed by home-made amplifier laser system. It was upgraded to 100GW in 2004 and also converted to second harmonic (0.53 micron).

3. Silicate picosecond laser chain (1.064 micron) was made exclusively for laser induced shock studies. This laser system was decomissioned in 2005, when the shock activity was shifted to the bigger two beam laser (100J in 0.6-3ns) built by the HPL Optics Lab.

4. Table Top Terawatt laser (1.054 micron) for ultrashort pulse interaction. Construction of the compact Table Top Terawatt [TTT] laser system for ultra-short, high intensity laser-plasma interaction studies was taken up in 1999 and was completed in March 2003. This laser has a diode pumped glass sub-picosecond oscillator [commercial] followed by indigenous systems like pulse stretcher, pulse selector, regenerative amplifier, beam expander, douple pass Nd:glass amplifier, a vacuum spatial filter cum relay system, a single pass power amplifier, a pulse compressor and a vacuum beam transport line.

A commercial 10 TW Ti:sapphire laser system giving 500mJ in 50fs at 10Hz rep-rate has been installed in May 2005 and is being used for experiments on ultra-high intensity laser-matter interaction. Till Oct. 2006, it was operated at 3TW as the compressor was in air. After putting the compressor inside an indegenously made vacuum chamber, this laser is now operational at full power.

For more details, please contact : Dr.P.A.Naik Head, LPL.
Email: panaik (at) rrcat.gov.in

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