Publications by authors named "Justin Greenhalgh"

Article Synopsis
  • This report investigates type-I phase-matched second harmonic generation (SHG) using DKDP, YCOB, and LBO crystals with a Yb:YAG laser operating at 1029.5 nm.
  • DKDP showed a 45% efficiency, while YCOB and LBO achieved higher efficiencies of 50% and 65% respectively at the same fundamental intensity.
  • LBO demonstrated the highest conversion efficiency of 82% at increased intensity, generating 5.6 J of output energy, while YCOB did not improve at this intensity; the report also includes theoretical temperature maps for potential higher energy operation.
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The Diode Pumped Optical Laser for Experiments (DiPOLE) project at the Central Laser Facility aims to develop a scalable, efficient high pulse energy diode pumped laser amplifier system based on cryogenic gas cooled, multi-slab ceramic Yb:YAG technology. We present recent results obtained from a scaled down prototype laser system designed for operation at 10 Hz pulse repetition rate. At 140 K, the system generated 10.

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Significant advances have been made over the last decade to improve the performance, efficiency, and contrast of high peak and average power laser systems, driven by their use in a wide variety of fields, from the industrial to the scientific. As the contrast of the lasers has improved, interactions with contrasts of 10 are now routinely undertaken. At such high contrasts, there is negligible preplasma formation and the ionized surface layer created by subpicosecond-duration pulses typically forms a highly reflective "plasma mirror" capable of reflecting between 70% and 90% of the incident energy.

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