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PHELIX laser facility

Overview

The Petawatt High-Energy Laser for Heavy Ion EXperiments (PHELIX) is a versatile laser facilitydelivering intense laser beams with energies up to 1 kJoule or likewise powers > 500 TW. PHELIX is a flashlamp-pumped Nd:glass system employing two frontends, a pre amplifier and a main amplifier. It was built in close cooperation with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in the US and the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) in France.

Click on the particular component for further information

Click on the particular component for further information

Schematic overview of the PHELIX laser system
(Click on image for further information about the particular subsystems).
PHELIX serves three experimental areas: At the Z6 experimental area the worldwide unique combination of intense laser radiation with heavy ion beams generated at GSI’s accelarator facility (UNILAC) opens the door for interesting experiments in the field of plasma physics, nuclear physics and atomic physics. In addition, stand-alone experiments with intense laser beams can be carried out for studies such as proton acceleration or X-ray laser generation. For moderate beam intensities up to 10 TW an additional pulse compressor and target chamber is available.
For the generation of extreme laser intensities of > 10²⁰ W/cm² the chirped pulse amplification scheme (CPA) is used where a sub-picosecond laser pulse is stretched in time, amplified and recompressed afterwards. High energy beams are generated by the nanosecond frontend, which delivers arbitrary pulse shapes and pulse durations between 1 and 15 ns.

**Laser parameters:**
	long pulse	short pulse
Pulse duration:	0.7-20 ns	0.5-20 ps
Energy:	0.3-1 kJ	120 J
Max. Intensity:	10¹⁶ W/cm²	10²⁰ W/cm²
Contrast:	50 dB	60 dB

Scientific output

PHELIX is being used to explore various fields of science mostly related to plasma physics and atomic physics. Visit the PHELIX Publication page for more information and the latest scientific publications based on data gathered at PHELIX.

technical contact: v.bagnoud

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