We present the main features of the ultrashort, high-intensity laser installation at the Intense Laser Irradiation Laboratory (ILIL) including laser, beam transport and target area specifications. The laboratory was designed to ho

We present a diode-pumped, electro-optically Q-switched Tm:YAG laser with a cryogenically cooled laser crystal at 120 K. Output pulses of up to 2.55 mJ and 650 ns duration were demonstrated in an actively Q-switched configuration

We present experimental and numerical investigations of high-energy mid-infrared filamentation with multi-octave-spanning supercontinuum generation (SCG), pumped by a 2.4 μm, 250 fs Cr:ZnSe chirped-pulse laser amplifier. The SCG i

Narrowband microwave generation with tuneable frequency is demonstrated by illuminating a photoconductive semiconductor switch (PCSS) with a burst-mode fibre laser. The whole system is composed of a high-power linearly polarized b

Based on the pulse-shaping unit in the front end of high-power laser facilities, we propose a new hybrid scheme in a closed-loop control system including wavelet threshold denoising for pretreatment and a first derivative adaptive

The presence of pulse front tilt (PFT), caused by angular dispersion (AD) in femtosecond laser pulses, could degrade the performance of the laser system and/or impact the experimental yields. We present a single-shot diagnostic ca

The first demonstration of laser action in ruby was made in 1960 by T. H. Maiman of Hughes Research Laboratories, USA. Many laboratories worldwide began the search for lasers using different materials, operating at different wavel

The laser shock processing implemented by a laser-induced high-pressure plasma which propagates into the sample as a shockwave is innovatively applied as a post-processing technique on HfO2/SiO2 multilayer coatings for the first t

Mode distortion induced by stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) has become a new obstacle for the further development of high-power fiber lasers with high beam quality. Here, an approach for effective suppression of the SRS-induced m

Power scaling based on traditional ytterbium-doped fibers (YDFs) is limited by optical nonlinear effects and transverse mode instability (TMI) in high-power fiber lasers. Here, we propose a novel long tapered fiber with a constant

A 1178 J near diffraction limited 527 nm laser is realized in a complete closed-loop adaptive optics (AO) controlled off-axis multi-pass amplification laser system. Generated from a fiber laser and amplified by the pre-amplifier a

High-power fiber lasers have experienced a dramatic development over the last decade. Further increasing the output power needs an upscaling of the fiber mode area, while maintaining a single-mode output. Here, we propose an all-s

Controlling the delivery of multi-terawatt and petawatt laser pulses to final focus, both in position and angle, is critical to many laser applications such as optical guiding, laser–plasma acceleration, and laser-produced seconda

Considering the thermodynamical fluid mechanics in the gain medium and laser kinetic processes, a three-dimensional theoretical model of an exciplex-pumped Cs vapor laser with longitudinal and transverse gas flow is established. T

We report on the design and first results from experiments looking at the formation of radiative shocks on the Shenguang-II (SG-II) laser at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics in China. Laser-heating of a two-laye

High harmonic generation (HHG) is an ideal probing source. In general, all harmonics are coupled with the corresponding input laser when generated, and for applications, they are separated using additional spectrometers. Herein, w

The design and the early commissioning of the ELI-Beamlines laser facility’s 30 J, 30 fs, 10 Hz HAPLS (High-repetition-rate Advanced Petawatt Laser System) beam transport (BT) system to the P3 target chamber are described in detai

A kind of tapered segmented cladding fiber (T-SCF) with large mode area (LMA) is proposed, and the mode and amplification characteristics of T-SCFs with concave, linear, and convex tapered structures are investigated based on fini

We demonstrate a diode-pumped femtosecond Yb:CaGdAlO4 (Yb:CALGO) laser with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM) for stable mode-locking operation. A perfect beam profile is measured under 10 W output power with $M_{x