200TW upgrade of the Vulcan Nd:glass laser facility

We describe progress on the upgrade of the Central Laser Facility’s Nd:glass laser facility, Vulcan, to the 200 TW, 1020 W.cm−2 regime using Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) (1). The system uses a commercial Titanium Sapphire oscillator followed by a grating pulse stretcher and a phosphate glass rod and disc amplifier chain which boosts the pulse energy to 120 J at 150 mm aperture. The pulse is compressed using large aperture diffraction gratings (420×210 mm) in single pass and then focused on target using reflective optics.