MRI: Acquisition of a 100 Terawatt Laser Upgrade for Application to Basic and Applied Plasma Physics

MRI：获得 100 太瓦激光升级，用于基础和应用等离子体物理

• 批准号: 2215871
• 负责人: Howard Milchberg
• 金额: $ 113.54万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-15 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2215871&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MRI; Acquisition; 100; Terawatt; Laser

This project will upgrade the existing laser system at the University of Maryland to increase its output pulse energy by a factor of four, making possible a wide range of relativistic physics experiments on a tabletop. The experiments will be run mainly by students and postdocs and will include the types of experiments typically done at much larger laser facilities. These experiments are of both fundamental and practical interest for the development and application of advanced charged particle accelerators, intense laser pulse propagation, and ultra-high field nonlinear optics and plasma physics. The hands-on student and postdoc training obtained in running and maintaining the laser system, and performing and analyzing the experiments, will be invaluable for the development of a workforce in technical areas of increasing importance for science, industry and national defense.Based on recent experiments employing a Maryland-developed laser acceleration scheme at a petawatt-class laser facility, it is expected that the upgraded laser system at the University of Maryland will be able to accelerate electrons to over one billion electron volts (1 GeV), corresponding to nearly the speed of light. This will make possible tabletop x-ray and gamma ray light sources and their applications. In parallel efforts, the increased laser energy of the upgraded system will drive the development of efficient sources of radiation in hard-to-access wavelength regimes, such as terahertz radiation. It will also make possible experiments in laboratory astrophysics, including a new class of magnetic reconnection experiments in the relativistic regime.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目将升级马里兰大学现有的激光系统，以将其输出脉冲能量提高四倍，从而使桌面上的广泛相对论物理实验范围。 实验将主要由学生和博士后进行，并包括通常在更大的激光设施进行的实验类型。这些实验既具有基本和实际兴趣，既可以开发和应用高级带电粒子加速器，激光脉冲传播以及超高场非线性光学和等离子体物理学。在运行和维护激光系统以及进行和分析实验方面获得的动手动手学生和博士后培训对于发展对科学，行业和国防越来越重要的技术领域的劳动力而言是无价的马里兰州将能够将电子加速至10亿电子伏特（1 GEV），对应于几乎光速。这将使桌面X射线和伽玛射线光源及其应用。在并行的努力中，升级系统的激光能量增加将推动在难以访问波长状态（例如Terahertz辐射）中的有效辐射来源的发展。它还将在实验室天体物理学中进行实验，包括在相对论制度中进行的新一类磁重新连接实验。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响来通过评估来支持的。