My watch list

Vulcan laser

The Vulcan laser is an 8-beam 2.5 kJ per (~2 nanosecond) pulse infrared neodymium glass laser at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory's Central Laser Facility in Oxfordshire England. Vulcan is also capable of operating in frequency doubled mode where it can deliver about 1 kJ to a target at 532 nm in 2 ns pulses. One of Vulcan's beams is also available as an ultra-short pulse (~800 femtosecond) ultra-high intensity beam using chirped pulse amplification called the "Vulcan petawatt". Main uses for Vulcan and Vulcan petawatt are the investigation of high intensity light-matter coupling experiments and inertial confinement fusion experiments including the investigation of the "fast ignition" scheme of target implosion.

Additional recommended knowledge

Fusion power v • d • e
Atomic nucleus \| Nuclear fusion \| Nuclear power \| Nuclear reactor \| Timeline of nuclear fusion \| Plasma physics \| Magnetohydrodynamics \| Neutron flux \| Fusion energy gain factor \| Lawson criterion
Methods of fusing nuclei
Magnetic confinement: – Tokamak – Spheromak – Stellarator – Reversed field pinch – Field-Reversed Configuration – Levitated Dipole Inertial confinement: – Laser driven – Z-pinch – Bubble fusion (acoustic confinement) – Fusor (electrostatic confinement) Other forms of fusion: – Muon-catalyzed fusion – Pyroelectric fusion – Migma – Polywell – Dense plasma focus
List of fusion experiments
Magnetic confinement devices ITER (International) \| JET (European) \| JT-60 (Japan) \| Large Helical Device (Japan) \| KSTAR (Korea) \| EAST (China) \| T-15 (Russia) \| DIII-D (USA) \| Tore Supra (France) \| TFTR (USA) \| NSTX (USA) \| NCSX (USA) \| UCLA ET (USA) \| Alcator C-Mod (USA) \| LDX (USA) \| H-1NF (Australia) \| MAST (UK) \| START (UK) \| ASDEX Upgrade (Germany) \| Wendelstein 7-X (Germany) \| TCV (Switzerland) \| DEMO (Commercial) Inertial confinement devices Laser driven: — NIF (USA) \| OMEGA laser (USA) \| Nova laser (USA) \| Novette laser (USA) \| Nike laser (USA) \| Shiva laser (USA) \| Argus laser (USA) \| Cyclops laser (USA) \| Janus laser (USA) \| Long path laser (USA) \| 4 pi laser (USA) \| LMJ (France) \| Luli2000 (France) \| GEKKO XII (Japan) \| ISKRA lasers (Russia) \| Vulcan laser (UK) \| Asterix IV laser (Czech Republic) \| HiPER laser (European) Non-laser driven: — Z machine (USA) \| PACER (USA) See also: International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility