Laser driver development efforts towards direct drive short pulse ignition

Absorption of high-power laser pulses has been proposed as an efficient method to couple energy into a nanostructure target. At sufficient laser intensity the electrons are expelled via the ponderomotive force. The subsequent Coulomb forces within the residual nanostructure accelerates the ions well into the MeV range and effectively couples most of the laser energy to the ions. We develop diode pumped solid state Petawatt Laser (⪆100 J, ⪅100 fs) for 10 Hz operation with emphasis on achieving an overall wall-plug efficiency up to 10%, reaching a high temporal pre-pulse contrast ⪆10^-10:1at a timescale of a few picoseconds, and compact design.