KALDERA: a high-average power drive-laser for laser plasma acceleration
The KALDERA project aims at demonstrating a GeV-level laser plasma accelerator with repetition rates up to the kHz-regime along with unprecedented energy stability. Here, we report on the current development status of the KALDERA Ti:Sapphire drive-laser and present commissioning results of the first 700 mJ / 100 Hz amplifier stage and its high power broadband multilayer-dielectric grating compressor supporting pulse lengths below 30 fs. Beside the general laser architecture, we discuss the associated challenges concerning pumplasers, laser crystal cooling and broadband high-power pulse compression. Finally, the next development steps will be introduced which aim at demonstrating 100-TW of peak power and raising the repetition rate from 100 Hz to 1 kHz.
Authors
- Wim Leemans (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6573-8434)
- Timo Eichner (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2951-1395)
- Thomas Hülsenbusch (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9105-5183)
- Cora Braun (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3645-4984)
- Caterina Vidoli
- Christian Werle (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-4820-7817)
- Matthias Schnepp
- L. Winkelmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3124-393X)
- Andreas R. Maier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3361-4247)
- Guido Palmer
- Juan B. González‐Díaz
- Manuel Kirchen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1897-6656)
Institutions
- Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY (DE)
Publication Details
- Published
- 2025-06-03
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1117/12.3059070
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Laser-induced spectroscopy and plasma
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.86