High Intensity Laser Physics: from OPCPA Principle
to Laser Particle Accelerators
Abstract
In this presentation four decades of progress in OPCPA laser technologies at Vilnius University and laser labs all over the world will be discussed. It will start from the inception of the OPCPA idea, look at its different implementations with ever increasing pulse intensities over the past 25 years, and survey the current systems tailored for different applications. The trade-off between the average and peak power will be discussed in the context of different experiments. We will also consider the place for building-sized and tabletop-sized lasers in the laser research applications. These issues will be based on the evolution of high-intensity OPCPA laser systems conceived at Vilnius University that grew to be commercialized by Lithuanian laser companies. Current developments of such systems and the measurements employing them at the labs of Vilnius University Laser Research Centre will be presented.
Short Biography
Dr. Mikas Vengris (born in 1976) is a professor at the Laser Research Center, Faculty of Physics, Vilnius University. He studied physics at Vilnius University, and got his PhD degree at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (the Netherlands) in 2005. Mikas’s research interests focus on the ultrafast spectroscopy in molecular and solid-state systems. His ultrafast spectroscopy lab works on the photoinduced processes in photosensitive molecules, ranging from biological pigments and pigment-protein complexes to synthetic molecules and solid-state media (nonlinear and laser crystals, and optical coatings). He has also worked on investigating cascaded nonlinear phenomena occurring in laser cavities, nonlinear light transformations in bulk transparent media, and ultrafast holographic imaging. Additionally, as a part of his research work, Mikas is developing spectroscopic measurement and imaging equipment. Currently, Mikas is supervising the construction of the application and spectroscopy lab for high-harmonics and attosecond pulses, a part of High-Intensity Laser Laboratory at the Laser Research Center. The immediate technical goals in this direction include implementing generation and characterization equipment for attosecond pulses and construction of pump-probe setup with photoelectron detection capable of analyzing solid-state and gaseous media. Mikas has co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and served as a scientific advisor of 5 PhD students.
