Filamentary structures can form within the beam of protons accelerated during the interaction of an intense laser pulse with an ultrathin foil target. Such behaviour is shown to be dependent upon the formation time of quasi-static magnetic field structures throughout the target volume and the extent of the rear surface proton expansion over the same period. This is observed via both numerical and experimental investigations. By controlling the intensity profile of the laser drive, via the use of two temporally separated pulses, both the initial rear surface proton expansion and magnetic field formation time can be varied, resulting in modification to the degree of filamentary structure present within the laser-driven proton beam.

High-brightness fiber laser sources usually utilize active rare-earth-doped fibers cladding-pumped by multimode laser diodes (LDs), but they operate in limited wavelength ranges. Singlemode-passive-fiber based Raman lasers are able to operate at almost any wavelength being pumped by high-power fiber lasers. One of the interesting possibilities is to directly pump graded-index (GRIN) multimode passive fibers by available high-power multimode LDs at 915–940 nm, thus achieving high-power Raman lasing in the wavelength range of 950–1000 nm, which is problematic for rare-earth-doped fiber lasers. Here we review the latest results on the development of all-fiber high-brightness LD-pumped sources based on GRIN fiber with in-fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs). The mode-selection properties of FBGs inscribed by fs pulses supported by the Raman clean-up effect result in efficient conversion of multimode pump into a high-quality output beam at 9xx nm. GRIN fibers with core diameters 62.5, 85 and $100~\unicode[STIX]{x03BC}\text{m}$ are compared. Further scaling capabilities and potential applications of such sources are discussed.

We report on the concept of an innovative source to produce polarized proton/deuteron beams of a kinetic energy up to several GeV from a laser-driven plasma accelerator. Spin effects have been implemented into the particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation code VLPL (Virtual Laser Plasma Lab) to make theoretical predictions about the behavior of proton spins in laser-induced plasmas. Simulations of spin-polarized targets show that the polarization is conserved during the acceleration process. For the experimental realization, a polarized HCl gas-jet target is under construction using the fundamental wavelength of a Nd:YAG laser system to align the HCl bonds and simultaneously circularly polarized light of the fifth harmonic to photo-dissociate, yielding nuclear polarized H atoms. Subsequently, their degree of polarization is measured with a Lamb-shift polarimeter. The final experiments, aiming at the first observation of a polarized particle beam from laser-generated plasmas, will be carried out at the 10 PW laser system SULF at SIOM, Shanghai.

Optical parametric chirped-pulse amplification (OPCPA) [Dubietis et al., Opt. Commun. 88, 437 (1992)] implemented by multikilojoule Nd:glass pump lasers is a promising approach to produce ultraintense pulses (${>}10^{23}~\text{W}/\text{cm}^{2}$). Technologies are being developed to upgrade the OMEGA EP Laser System with the goal to pump an optical parametric amplifier line (EP OPAL) with two of the OMEGA EP beamlines. The resulting ultraintense pulses (1.5 kJ, 20 fs, $10^{24}~\text{W}/\text{cm}^{2}$) would be used jointly with picosecond and nanosecond pulses produced by the other two beamlines. A midscale OPAL pumped by the Multi-Terawatt (MTW) laser is being constructed to produce 7.5-J, 15-fs pulses and demonstrate scalable technologies suitable for the upgrade. MTW OPAL will share a target area with the MTW laser (50 J, 1 to 100 ps), enabling several joint-shot configurations. We report on the status of the MTW OPAL system, and the technology development required for this class of all-OPCPA laser system for ultraintense pulses.

A multichannel calorimeter system is designed and constructed which is capable of delivering single-shot and broad-band spectral measurement of terahertz (THz) radiation generated in intense laser&ndash;plasma interactions. The generation mechanism of backward THz radiation (BTR) is studied by using the multichannel calorimeter system in an intense picosecond laser&ndash;solid interaction experiment. The dependence of the BTR energy and spectrum on laser energy, target thickness and pre-plasma scale length is obtained. These results indicate that coherent transition radiation is responsible for the low-frequency component (${<}$1 THz) of BTR. It is also observed that a large-scale pre-plasma primarily enhances the high-frequency component (${>}$3 THz) of BTR.

A high-power, Joule-class, nanosecond temporally shaped multi-pass ring laser amplifier system with two neodymium-doped phosphate glass (Nd:glass) laser heads is demonstrated. The laser amplifier system consists of three parts: an all-fiber structure seeder, a diode-pumped Nd:glass regenerative amplifier and a multi-pass ring amplifier, where the thermally induced depolarization of two laser heads is studied experimentally and theoretically. Following the injection of a square pulse with the pulse energy of 0.9 mJ and pulse width of 6 ns, a 0.969-J high-energy laser pulse at 1 Hz was generated, which had the ability to change the waveform arbitrarily, based on the all-fiber structure front end. The experimental results show that the proposed laser system is promising to be adopted in the preamplifier of high-power laser facilities.

In order to improve the damage threshold and enlarge the aperture of a laser beam shaper, photolithographic patterning technology is adopted to design a new type of liquid crystal binary mask. The inherent conductive metal layer of commercial liquid crystal electro-optical spatial light modulators is replaced by azobenzene-based photoalignment layers patterned by noncontact photolithography. Using the azobenzene-based photoalignment layer, a liquid crystal binary mask for beam shaping is fabricated. In addition, the shaping ability, damage threshold, write/erase flexibility and stability of the liquid crystal binary mask are tested. Using a 1 Hz near-IR (1064 nm) laser, the multiple-shot nanosecond damage threshold of the liquid crystal mask is measured to be higher than $15~\text{J}/\text{cm}^{2}$. The damage threshold of the azobenzene-based photoalignment layer is higher than $50~\text{J}/\text{cm}^{2}$ under the same testing conditions.

The spatial-intensity profile of light reflected during the interaction of an intense laser pulse with a microstructured target is investigated experimentally and the potential to apply this as a diagnostic of the interaction physics is explored numerically. Diffraction and speckle patterns are measured in the specularly reflected light in the cases of targets with regular groove and needle-like structures, respectively, highlighting the potential to use this as a diagnostic of the evolving plasma surface. It is shown, via ray-tracing and numerical modelling, that for a laser focal spot diameter smaller than the periodicity of the target structure, the reflected light patterns can potentially be used to diagnose the degree of plasma expansion, and by extension the local plasma temperature, at the focus of the intense laser light. The reflected patterns could also be used to diagnose the size of the laser focal spot during a high-intensity interaction when using a regular structure with known spacing.

The paper presents a review of dynamic stabilization mechanisms for plasma instabilities. One of the dynamic stabilization mechanisms for plasma instability was proposed in the paper [Kawata, Phys. Plasmas 19, 024503 (2012)], based on a perturbation phase control. In general, instabilities emerge from the perturbations. Normally the perturbation phase is unknown, and so the instability growth rate is discussed. However, if the perturbation phase is known, the instability growth can be controlled by a superimposition of perturbations imposed actively. Based on this mechanism we present the application results of the dynamic stabilization mechanism to the Rayleigh&ndash;Taylor instability (RTI) and to the filamentation instability as typical examples in this paper. On the other hand, in the paper [Boris, Comments Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 3, 1 (1977)] another mechanism was proposed to stabilize RTI, and was realized by the pulse train or the laser intensity modulation in laser inertial fusion [Betti et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 71, 3131 (1993)]. In this latter mechanism, an oscillating strong force is applied to modify the basic equation, and consequently the new stabilization window is created. Originally the latter was proposed by Kapitza. We review the two stabilization mechanisms, and present the application results of the former dynamic stabilization mechanism.

In 2018 the journal High Power Laser Science and Engineering produced a Special Issue on Laboratory Astrophysics. The scope of the special issue was to span the latest research and reviews on the following topics related to laboratory astrophysics and related phenomena. The topics invited for inclusion were: