The compression of a laser pulse by amplification of an ultra short pulse beam which seeds the stimulated Raman scatter of the first beam has been long been discussed in the context of solid and gas media. We investigate the possibility of using intersecting beams in a plasma to compress nanosecond pulses to picosecond duration by scattering from driven electron waves. Recent theoretical studies have shown the possibility of efficient compression with large amplitude, non-linear Langmuir waves driven either by SRS [1] or non-resonantly [2]. We describe experiments in which a plasma suitable for pulse compression is created, and amplification of an ultra short pulse beam is demonstrated.

The purpose of the workshop is to review recent experiments on the laser plasma interactions of multiple laser beams, and encourage interaction and collaboration on future experiments in this exciting emerging area. The format is a series of nine, 10 minute talks followed by a 5 minute question period covering the major topics of (1) scattering and transfer of power by multiple beams in ICF experiments; (2) basic studies of KEEN wave physics especially as facilitated by multi-beam interaction; and (3) compression of laser pulses by multi-beam interactions.

Experiments on the National Ignition Facility (NIF) have employed the first four beams to measure propagation and laser backscattering losses in large ignition-size plasmas. Gas-filled targets between 2 mm and 7 mm length have been heated from one side by overlapping the focal spots of the four beams from one quad operated at 351 nm (3{omega}) with a total intensity of 2 x 10{sup 15}W cm{sup -2}. The targets were filled with 1 atm of CO{sub 2} producing of up to 7 mm long homogeneously heated plasmas with densities of n{sub e} = 5 x 10{sup 20} cm{sup -3} and temperatures of T{sub e} = 2 keV. The high energy in a NIF quad of beams of 16kJ, illuminating the target from one direction, creates unique conditions for the study of laser plasma interactions at scale lengths not previously accessible. The propagation through the large-scale plasma was measured with a gated x-ray imager that was filtered for 3.5 keV x rays. These data indicate that the beams interact with the full length of this ignition-scale plasma during the last {approx}1 ns of the experiment when applying full laser beam smoothing consisting of phase plates, smoothing by spectral dispersion and polarization …

None

None