Lasers & Sources

PowerPhotonic supplies microoptics for ELI HAPLS high-energy laser

June 3, 2015

PowerPhotonic is working with Lasertel by supplying precision microoptics for the ELI HAPLS petawatt laser.

Microoptics fabrication company PowerPhotonic (Dalgety Bay, Scotland) is working with Lasertel (Tucson, AZ) by supplying precision microoptics for the High Repetition-Rate Advanced Petawatt Laser System (HAPLS) being built by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) for the European Union's Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) facility near Prague, Czech Republic.

The patented optics are manufactured using direct-write laser micromachining technology from PowerPhotonic and have been in development for the last five years. The optical design provides precise beam shaping in an ultracompact and reliable optical assembly, enabling Lasertel to collimate the world's highest peak-power laser diode arrays. The HAPLS laser will be capable of delivering laser pulses at a repetition rate of 10 per second, each with peak power of greater than 1 petawatt.

Roy McBride, managing director of PowerPhotonic said, "We have been working with Lasertel for many years to bring to market a new standard in precision micro-optics for laser diode pump sources. It is tremendous to be working with Lasertel and also to be associated with such a prestigious programme such as HAPLS. As a company, we have always prided ourselves on our ability to deliver state-of-the-art optics, and it is gratifying to get recognition of this by being part of the world's most powerful laser."

ELI will be the world's first international laser research center, operating in a similar manner to the particle physics facility at CERN. The laser facility aims to host some the most intense lasers in the world and make them available to an international scientific user community.

Founded in 2004 and headquartered in the United Kingdom, the PowerPhotonic engineering team is focused on providing optical solutions for diode laser and high-power laser applications, principally for the materials processing, medical systems, optical communications, and defense industries. PowerPhotonic says they are experts in microoptic technology and, supported by their unique fabrication process, are well-positioned to create products that solve problems that cannot easily be addressed using traditional manufacturing techniques.

SOURCE: PowerPhotonic; http://www.powerphotonic.com/2015/06/june-2015-worlds-powerful-laser/

This article was originally published on 6/3/2015

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.