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NNSA’s interest in Intense and Ultrafast Lasers

N AT I O N A L N U C L E A R S E C U R I T Y A D M I N I S T R AT I O N OFFICE OF DEFENSE PROGRAMS

Presented to:National Academy of Sciences

Committee on Opportunities in the Science, Applications, and Technology of Intense Ultrafast Lasers

Washington, DC

Presented by:Kirk Levedahl, PhD

Program Manger in the NNSA Office of Inertial Confinement Fusion

Dec 4, 2015

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NNSA’s mission interest in high intensity lasers

Historically, NNSA’s lead in high energy and high intensity lasers grew out of the ICF program which grew out of nuclear weapons design. ICF had, from the outset, been viewed by DOE as a way of maintaining design capabilities in the absence of underground testing.

This was adopted as official policy in the stockpile stewardship program as described in PDD-15

The objective of the Plan for Stockpile Stewardship is to maintain a high level of confidence in the safety, reliability and performance of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile in the absence of nuclear testing. Achieving this objective will require {a) continued use of current facilities and programs, (b) a limited set of new experimental and computational facilities and-programs…

Weapons physics experiments are required to provide improved data to assess the stockpile. Key elements include increasing the shot rate on existing laser and pulsed power facilities, as well as the construction of new facilities for simulation of nuclear secondary processes.

In sum, NNSA maintains confidence in our nuclear deterrence through science based activities:

1. Materials science

2. HED science for primary boost, secondary performance, outputs and effects.

3. Nonproliferation.

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NNSA’s drivers for high intensity ultrafast lasers

1. Diagnostics on HED facilities (NIF, Z, Omega) (e.g. ARC, Omega EP)

2. ICF – “fast ignition” scheme could be revived if appropriate short pulsed laser is available (10’s of pettawatts).

3. Drivers for HED science (e.g. Omega EP, ARC, trident short pulsed beam, LCLS including MEC endstation, etc. universities).

4. NNSA also stewards the NNSA laboratories for other science and national security interests – proliferation, technological surprise, what is the rest of the world up to (e.g. FLASH, ELI).

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NNSA’s role in stewarding HED science

• As the primary Federal steward of research capabilities in HED-LP within DOE, NNSA will develop management processes to provide access to its major facilities by researchers external to the NNSA national laboratories

• The Office of Science (SC) and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) within DOE will establish a joint program in HED-LP responsible forstewarding fundamental high energy density laboratory plasma science within the Department of Energy

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NNSA’s has historically been the dominant sponsor of high intensity lasers

Lasers sponsored by NNSA include:1. Long-pulse high energy lasers for ICF (JANUS, ARGUS, NOVA, NIF, ARIES, NIKE,

Omega, TRIDENT).

2. NOVA Petawatt at LLNL (Campbell and Perry), Texas Petawatt (Dittmire), Scarlett (Ohio State University), Rochester Omega EP, TRIDENT (LANL), NIF ARC laser

3. NNSA is the steward of LLNL which is developing the HAPLS laser for ELI in the Czech republic (>1PW at 10 hz repetition rate)

Interest in XFELS:

4. User of LCLS and the Materials under Extreme Conditions (MEC) end station at SLAC.Eg. groundbreaking work of Justin Wark, et. al. on ionization depression in dense materials.

5. Interest in LCLS II and upgrades to MEC

6. MARIE proposal at LANL (43 kev multi-pulsed XFEL) for materials science (e.g. observe kinetics of phase transitions in materials).

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Examples

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New facilities are elucidating phenomenaat high densities and pressures

Thomas Fermi model turns out to be an oversimplification

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We can now observe kinetic effects in phase transitions

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Recent Fe-opacity experiment at SNL Z shows large departure from standard models

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NNSA’s interest perfuse HED science - E.g. SLAC Sponsored 3rd annual High Power Laser workshop agenda

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

8:30 Mike Dunne LCLS

8:45 Sean Finnegan DOE-FES

9:15 Andy MacKinnon MEC status and outlook

10:15   Coffee Break

10:30 Alan FryMEC Laser Status and Development Options

11:10 Sakura PascarelliX-ray Absorption Spectroscopy on Shocked Matter at ESRF

11:40 Juan Fernandez

Diagnosing Mixing of Heterogeneous Interfaces Enhanced By Plasma Effects:  A Crucial Application of X-ray Sources To An Important Problem

12:10  Lunch and Vendor Exhibition at Redwood Room

13:10 Ray Smith

High Pressure X-ray Diffraction Experiments on the Omega and NIF Laser Facilities

13:40 Andrew NgElectron Kinetics in Non-Equilibrium Warm Dense Gold

14:10 Ulf Zastrau HED Instrument at XFEL

Monday, October 5, 2015

8:30  MEC Tours and Registration at Kavli Auditorium

10:30Bolme/Glenzer/Fry

Welcome

10:40Arianna Gleason

Pump-Probe Experiments on Earth Relevant Minerals

11:00Chris Wehrenberg

Lattice Relaxation and Twinning in Shock Compressed Tantalum

11:20Richard Briggs 

Phase Transitions and Shock Melting Sc and Bi

11:40Dayne Fratanduono

High-Pressure Polymorphism Of Diamond and The Implications For Meteorite Impact Events And Material Science

12:00  Group Photo, Lunch and Vendor Exhibition at Redwood Room

13:10Emma McBride

Normal and Transverse Diffraction Investigating Phase Transition Pathways in Dynamically Compressed Silicon

13:30 Bob NaglerThe Phase Contrast Imaging Instrument at MEC

13:50 Tom CowanMeasuring Self-Generated Magnetic Fields From Laser-Sold Interaction

14:10Christian Rödel

MEC Experiments on the Properties of Laser-Heated Dense Hydrogen

14:30 Eric GaltierIn Situ Study of Hot Electron Propagation and Their Filamentation In Solids

14:50   Coffee Break

15:10 David RileyX-ray Scattering From Warm Dense Matter

15:30 Sheng Jiang Kinetic Ion Diffusion At Interfaces

15:50 Felicie AlbertStudy of Non-Thermal Melting in Silica with LCLS and Betatron Radiation