Access Facilities - CLF

Access to the VULCAN, ASTRA, and Lasers for Science facilities. >>> CLF Homepage

>> access projects performed by CLF users

Vulcan is one of the world’s leading high power laser facilities offering UK and European researchers a unique facility for ultra-high intensity laser interactions with solids, gases and plasmas. Capabilities include a Petawatt beamline and the ability to host a combination of 100TW short pulses synchronised with 2.6kJ multi-beam nanosecond pulses. These offer researchers the opportunity to perform experiments with novel geometries and pulse options.
Contact: David Neely Email

Astra Gemini is an extension of the CLF’s Astra laser to convert it into a two-beam Petawatt class laser.  Each beam will deliver 15 joules to target in a pulse of 30 femtoseconds (a peak power of 0.5 PW), with a maximum focused intensity of ~10²² Wcm^-2. An unusual feature of Gemini is its maximum shot rate of one shot every 20 seconds, which is very high for such a facility. During the first experiments, conducted during 2008, this high shot rate made possible new experimental approaches to ultra high intensity physics research.
Contact: David Neely Email

Astra Artemis is a new ultra-fast and widely tuneable laser facility for the CLF, based on a high repetition rate carrier-envelope phase (CEP) stabilised femtosecond laser source. Using the laser to drive nonlinear optical processes, we generate multiple ultra-short pulses across the XUV, visible and infrared spectrum. These synchronised pulses are coupled to a pair of XUV beamlines with synchrotron style end-stations for experiments in materials science, and atomic and molecular physics and chemistry.
Contact: Emma Springate Email

The Lasers for Science Facility offers techniques applicable to (i) Molecular Structural Dynamics: such as time-resolved linear and non-linear mid-IR and Raman spectroscopy, 2DIR, Kerr gated Raman, fs-stimulated Raman and (ii) Functional Biosystems Imaging: such as multidimensional single molecule imaging, fluorescence lifetime imaging, optical trapping, ultra-high resolution microscopy, advanced data imaging processing (e.g. Bayesian segmentation). These resources are complemented and supported by a comprehensive biology laboratory, sample manipulation using optical tweezers and sample preparation and diagnostic facilities. In addition, expert scientific collaborative support will be given at all stages of experimental programmes from concept to publication.
Contact: Daniel Rolfe Email

Activities:
Providing access to advanced laser systems for inter- and cross-disciplinary research in physics, chemistry and biology. Areas of study include laser acceleration of electrons and protons, X-ray and proton tomography, fusion studies,
laser-induced nuclear reactions, multiphoton atomic and molecular physics, time-resolved Raman spectroscopy, time-resolved microscopy and protein folding dynamics.

Research opportunities within the Laserlab access activity:

• High power , high energy Vulcan laser and target systems
• High repetition rate tuneable laser and XUV pulses from Artemis
• Frequency tunable IR picosecond laser systems
• Multiphoton microscopy