Livermore, California (PRWEB) August 27, 2014
In 2013, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), by means of Lawrence Livermore National Safety LLC (LLNS), was awarded more than $ 45 million to develop and deliver a state-of-the-art laser method for the European Union’s Extreme Light Infrastructure Beamlines facility (ELI Beamlines), beneath building in the Czech Republic.

When commissioned to its complete design functionality, the laser technique, known as the “High repetition-rate Sophisticated Petawatt Laser Technique” (HAPLS), will be the world’s highest average power petawatt laser system.

Nearly a year into the project, considerably progress has been made, and all contract milestones to date have been delivered on schedule. Beneath the same agreement, ELI Beamlines delivers different perform packages to LLNL enabling HAPLS handle and timing systems to interface with the overarching ELI Beamlines facility manage system. In a collaborative effort, researchers and engineers from LLNL’s NIF & Photon Science Directorate operate with scientists from the ELI facility to create, program and configure these systems.

According to Constantin Haefner, LLNL’s project manager for HAPLS, this joint function is essential. “Operating closely together on these collaborative efforts permits us to provide a laser method most consistent with ELI Beamlines facility specifications. It also permits the ELI Beamlines team to gain early insight into the laser system architecture and gain operational experience,” he stated.

This summer time, that procedure started. Marc-Andre Drouin and Karel Kasl, manage method programmers for ELI, spent 3 months at LLNL functioning with the HAPLS integrated manage system team. In the course of their time at LLNL, they focused almost exclusively on the ELI-HAPLS timing interface, which enables precise synchronization of HAPLS to the ELI Beamlines master clock.

“The HAPLS timing program should be in a position to operate independent of the ELI timing method,” Drouin mentioned. “But, it also needs to be capable of becoming completely synchronized to ELI. That bridge in between timing systems is what we have been functioning on – making sure HAPLS runs extremely nicely independently as properly as integrating with ELI.”

Haefner pointed out that whilst HAPLS is a key component, it becomes a subsystem when it moves to the ELI facility. When at ELI, HAPLS will integrate with the wider user facility, consisting of target systems, experimental systems, diagnostic systems – all of which have to be timed and fed from a master clock.

Kasl likened the master clock to a universal clock used by an workplace. “We brought the clock right here, and now absolutely everyone in the workplace is making use of the clock to synchronize their function,” he said.

The master clock, constructed by ELI, was programmed as a bridge among the ELI and HAPLS timing systems. During their time at LLNL, Drouin and Kasl worked on configuring that hardware and writing the computer software that talks to the clock and to the subcomponents that control a quite precise sequence of events.

Last week, the ELI team finished their three-month stint at LLNL, but will be back in early fall to continue operate – and they are searching forward to it.

“This unit is going to get integrated with our other systems, so there demands to be an overlap amongst the two teams,” Kasl said.

“It really is excellent experience for us to understand about the internal workings of the HAPLS technique,” Drouin added. “Having this inside expertise of the most integral components of the laser is a extremely large advantage for us in the extended run.”

Earlier this year, Jack Naylon and Tomas Mazanec, also from ELI, visited LLNL to contribute to the perform.