UKRI-1799 Ns OPCPA Pump Laser

The Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), a component Research Council of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), is a world-leading multi-disciplinary science organisation, whose goal is to deliver economic, societal, scientific and international benefits to the UK and its people — and more broadly to the world. Building work is currently underway at UKRI’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) site for the EPAC (Extreme Photonics and Applications Centre) facility. EPAC will be applied to short pulse high power applications with its 10 Hertz Petawatt Laser. This will provide a step-change in capabilities for laser-driven accelerator research in the UK, enabling a plasma wakefield accelerator facility with multi-GeV electron beams and spatially coherent X-ray and gamma-ray beams for cutting edge experiments in plasma physics, laboratory astrophysics and condensed matter and material science. EPAC will bring together world-leading interdisciplinary expertise to develop and apply novel, laser based, non-conventional accelerators and particle sources which have unique properties. UKRI, the contracting authority, wishes to purchase a one laser system that will be used as the pump for a nanosecond OPCPA pre-amplifier that will provide amplified pulses with an energy of up to 1.5J, as part of the EPAC Project. The minimum scope of the contract is for the supply of one laser system.