The flagship of the equipment available at IPPL is the most powerful ultrashort laser pulse system in Greece, delivering 45 TW (1.1 J, <25 fs, 10 Hz), which can be focused at intensities exceeding 1021 Wcm-2 allowing experiments to be performed in cutting-edge research fields. IPPL also disposes a laser system with a very short pulse duration of 7 fs and phase stabilization (CEP) for special requirements experiments, as well as modern solid state laser systems with pulse duration of the order of ps and ns, with different wavelengths (colors) output. IPPL specialized equipment includes pulsed optoelectronic power devices (Plasma Focus, Z-pinch, X-pinch) for the creation of dense and hot plasma used both for the study of plasma dynamics and for the development of special applications. It also has well-equipped vacuum chambers for experiments, as well as high-quality other scientific equipment and diagnostic devices.
Indicative equipment is shown below:
Zeus TW-class ultrafast laser system
TW-class Ti:Sapphire-based ultrafast laser system – Amplitude Technologies S.A. – 45TW, 25fs, single-shot up to 10Hz and a 35fs,10mJ synchronized probe beam
Experimental vacuum chamber
Ultrafast Ti:Sapphire laser system
Femtolasers GmbH – Oscillator: <10fs, 400mW (avg), 80MHz CEP-stabilized Amplifier: 35fs, 1.5mJ pp, 1KHz CEP-stabilized External fiber compressor: <7fs, 0.8mJ pp, 1KHz CEP-stabilized
Dynamic nanosecond interferometry
Dynamic nanosecond interferometry for plasma and material characterization Single longitudinal mode Nd: YAG laser, 6ns, 850mJ pp (max), 10Hz, four harmonics (Quantel)
Pulsed Power X-pinch Device
High performance X-pinch plasma generator and picosecond optical probe diagnostics with the Q-switched SBS compressed Nd: YAG laser, 150ps, 250mJ, 10Hz four harmonics
ESPI system
Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometry (ESPI) system Plasma & material characterization CW, DPSS Lasers for Interferometry and Holography 5W, 532nm, single longitudinal mode (Coherent) Ultra fast laser pulse characterization device (down to 5fs) 3D Holographic Camera MeV Electron Magnetic Energy Analyzer
Plasma focus device
Maximum Stored Energy ~ 400J at 19kV, Total Capacitance 2020nF ± 10%, Equivalent Inductance 38nH, Equivalent Resistance 87.4mΩ, Peak Current at 19kV ~90kA
Experimental equipment and diagnostics for laser machining
The conventional machining equipment of IPPL consists of two lathes, a drilling and a 3-axis milling machine. Additionally, a 3-axis CNC milling is now equipped by a laser head base that hosts the LightCutter laser cutting head and the welding head YW30 of Precitec which are assembled with the Pipa-Q connector to the powerful CW 2kW Trumpf fiber optic laser. In addition, a collimator of SPI is also available and capable of delivering a laser beam of 1 cm diameter, even from 10 m. The laser beam is transmitted along a 5 m optical fiber of 0.1 mm. The thermal camera Optris is the basic diagnostic tool, extra equipped by in-house developed focal optics. IPPL is also equipped with sensors for stress and strain measurements: strain gauges and thermocouples and the corresponding hardware and the data acquisition software.
