The Shen-Guang II Upgrade (SG-II-U) laser facility consists of eight high-power nanosecond laser beams and one short-pulse picosecond petawatt laser. It is designed for the study of inertial confinement fusion (ICF), especially for conducting fast ignition (FI) research in China and other basic science experiments. To perform FI successfully with hohlraum targets containing a golden cone, the long-pulse beam and cylindrical hohlraum as well as the short-pulse beam and cone target alignment must satisfy tight specifications (30 and $20~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{m}$ rms for each case). To explore new ICF ignition targets with six laser entrance holes (LEHs), a rotation sensor was adapted to meet the requirements of a three-dimensional target and correct beam alignment. In this paper, the strategy for aligning the nanosecond beam based on target alignment sensor (TAS) is introduced and improved to meet requirements of the picosecond lasers and the new six LEHs hohlraum targets in the SG-II-U facility. The expected performance of the alignment system is presented, and the alignment error is also discussed.

The objective of maintaining the cleanliness of the multi-segment disk amplifier in Shenguang-II (SG-II) is to reduce laser-induced damage for optics. The flow field of clean gas, which is used for the transportation of contaminant particles, is a key factor affecting the cleanliness level in the multi-segment disk amplifier. We developed a gas–solid coupling and three-dimensional flow numerical simulation model. The three-dimensional and two-phase flow model is verified by the flow-field smog experiment and the particle concentration measurement experiment with the 130-disk amplifier in SG-II. By optimizing the boundary conditions with the same flow rate, the multi-inlet vector flow scheme can not only effectively reduce the purging time, but also prevent the reverse diffusion of contaminant particles in the multi-segment disk amplifier and the deposition of contaminant particles on the surface of the Nd:glass.

We report a cavity-dumped 1123 nm laser with narrow pulse width and high peak power by an MgO: LN crystal electro-optic (EO) modulator. Based on the structural optimization design of a folded biconcave cavity using the 808 nm pulsed laser diode (LD) side-pumped ceramic Nd: YAG rod, output pulses with maximum pulse energy and peak power up to 39.6 mJ and 9.73 MW were obtained, corresponding to 100 Hz repetition rate and 4.07 ns pulse width. The instabilities of pulse width and pulse energy were $\pm$1.55% and $\pm$2.06%, respectively. At the highest repetition rate of 1 kHz, the pulse energy, pulse width, and peak power were 11.3 mJ, 5.05 ns, and 2.24 MW, respectively. The instabilities of pulse width and pulse energy were $\pm$2.65% and $\pm$3.47%, respectively.

Enhanced acceleration of protons to high energy by relatively modest high power ultra-short laser pulses, interacting with snow micro-structured targets was recently proposed. A notably increased proton energy was attributed to a combination of several mechanisms such as localized enhancement of the laser field intensity near the tip of $1~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{m}$ size whisker and increase in the hot electron concentration near the tip. Moreover, the use of mass-limited target prevents undesirable spread of absorbed laser energy out of the interaction zone. With increasing laser intensity a Coulomb explosion of the positively charged whisker will occur. All these mechanisms are functions of the local density profile and strongly depend on the laser pre-pulse structure. To clarify the effect of the pre-pulse on the state of the snow micro-structured target at the time of interaction with the main pulse, we measured the optical damage threshold (ODT) of the snow targets. ODT of $0.4~\text{J}/\text{cm}^{2}$ was measured by irradiating snow micro-structured targets with 50 fs duration pulses of Ti:Sapphire laser.

The corrosion behaviors of the ArF excimer laser copper alloy electrodes were studied. The morphology, composition and impurities were characterized by optical microscope, scanning electron microscopy, electron microprobe and glow discharge mass spectrometer methods. The anode produces the reef, the corrosion pits, the hole layer and the $1{-}10~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{m}$ level flake impurity. The cathode produces the particles, the sputtering pits, the element reduce layer and the $1~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{m}$ level particle impurity. Besides the Cu element, other elements in the alloy participate in the corrosion: Al element in the reef is over 1.5 times of the anode, Zn element in the particles is 1.3 times of the cathode, many trace elements congregate on the copper surface several and even hundreds of times. These elements are responsible to a great degree for the impurities and the rapid energy decline of the long-time idled laser.