Alignment system for high-power large aperture laser systems

The ELI-beamlines facility 1 is being built within the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI) project based on the European ESFRI (European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures) process. The alignment of the high power lasers is an essential operation to be performed before shooting. A critical part of the alignment procedure is the definition of the references for the alignment. The most common procedure is to insert a cross shaped mask into the beam path. The centre of the cross defines the optical axis. Because of the difficulties in automatizing this procedure, a semi-automatic procedure is being used in many facilities. During such procedure an operator has to interact with the alignment system. The purpose of this work is to present the alignment process and to show how to use light sources as references for a fully automated alignment system. 1, 2