The laser beamline in SULF facility

In this paper, we report the recent progress on the 1 PW/0.1 Hz laser beamline of Shanghai Superintense Ultrafast Laser Facility (SULF). The SULF-1 PW laser beamline is based on the double chirped pulse amplification (CPA) scheme, which can generate laser pulses of 50.8 J at 0.1 Hz after the final amplifier; the shot-to-shot energy fluctuation of the amplified pulse is as low as 1.2% (std). After compression, the pulse duration of 29.6 fs is achieved, which can support a maximal peak power of 1 PW. The contrast ratio at 80 ps before main pulse is measured to be 2.5 x 10(-11). The focused peak intensity is improved by optimizing the angular dispersion in the grating compressor. The maximal focused peak intensity can reach 2.7 x 10(19) W/cm(2) even with an f/26.5 off-axis parabolic mirror. The horizontal and vertical angular pointing fluctuations in 1 h are measured to be 1.89 and 2.45 mu rad, respectively. The moderate repetition rate and the good stability are desirable characteristics for laser-matter interactions. The SULF-1 PW laser beamline is now in the phase of commissioning, and preliminary experiments of particle acceleration and secondary radiation under 300400 TW/0.1 Hz laser condition have been implemented. The progress on the experiments and the daily stable operation of the laser demonstrate the availability of the SULF-1 PW beamline.