Lund High Power Laser Facility

The Lund High Power Laser Facility is one of the spear head installations within the Lund Laser Centre (LLC). The LLC is one of the founding members of the EC supported consortium Laserlab-Europe, presently comprising 33 leading laser research infrastructures in 16 EU countries. The scientific coordinator (CGW) of the Lund High Power Laser Facility is since 2012 the coordinator of Laserlab-Europe. A large number of international research groups have visited the Lund High-Power Laser Facility to pursue advanced research projects within the EC supported Laserlab-Europe Access Programme.

The Lund high-power laser facility, founded in 1992, is one of the leading facilities in Europe for high-intensity laser-matter interactions, attosecond science and short-wavelength laser spectroscopy. Being a spearhead of the Lund Laser Centre, which is a European Major Research Infrastructure, the Facility is open not only to Swedish scientists, but also to scientists from abroad.

The 10 Hz Terawatt laser, which is today delivering ultrashort (35 fs) pulses of more than 40 TW peak power, is used for fundamental studies of ultra-intense light-matter interactions and laser-driven plasma acceleration of charged particles. The Facility is further one of the leading research centres where ultrafast optics and few-cycle optical pulse metrology and applications are developed. In addition pulses of attosecond duration are routinely generated, characterised and used for novel applications in atto physics.

The Lund high power laser facility is well equipped in terms of advanced lasers, target chambers, diagnostics, etc. required for a broad range of experimental research using short and ultra-intens laser pulses.
All data is generated and stored locally. When external users do experiments at the facility, they normally bring a copy of all recorded data with them home on a portable memory.

Sub-facilities/infrastructures
• The terawatt laser system
10 Hz, 35 fs pulse duration, 1.5 J, 800 nm
Used for ultra-intense light-matter interaction studies, high-harmonic generation, laser-driven particle acceleration
• The kilohertz laser system
1 kHz, 20 fs, 5 mJ, 800 nm, CEP stable
“Work horse” of attosecond research in Lund during the last 15 years. Tunable around 800 nm. After post compression 3.5 fs pulses are produced. Also equipped with a TOPAS to obtain different wavelengths.
• The OPCPA laser system
200 kHz, 10 J, 7 fs, 800 nm (600-1100 nm), CEP stable
System based on OPCPA, with rod-type fiber pump lasers. High-repetition rate system for high-order harmonic generation and attoscience, surface physics, ultrafast plasmonics.
• The development laser lab
1-200 kHz, 200 fs, 1 mJ@ 1 kHz, 35 J @200 kHz, 1030 nm, Applications of high-order harmonics, XUV spectroscopy, plasmonics.

Physical access. The facility provides extensive technical and scientific support to users, but the users remain in charge of their own experiments. The users normally never operates the lasers directly, but are provided with the laser beam to their experiments. The facility provides appropriate laser safety instructions and training to all users.

Managed by the Division of Atomic Physics, LTH
Scientific coordinator: Prof. Claes-Göran Wahlström