Laser research at the Institute of Physics AS CR

Laser research at the Institute of Physics of the Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic covers both the development of advanced pulsed high-power laser systems, the iodine and x-ray in particular, and their applications in science and technology. The COIL laboratory with a small chemical oxygen-iodine laser facility participates in the worldwide effort to develop a competitive quasi-steady laser device for industrial and military applications. In the new laboratory SOFIA a unique hybrid laser system consisting of a commercial crystal oscillator and iodine power amplifiers (SOFIA = Solid State Oscillator Followed by Iodine Amplifiers) has been developed. It is used as a pump of parametric amplifiers in a pilot OPCPA experiment. Our largest laboratory, the PALS Research Centre operated jointly with the Institute of Plasma Physics AS CR, is open to external users, offering them the beam time of the TW/ns iodine laser system PALS (Prague Asterix Laser System). Several tens of experimental projects have been performed at PALS since September 2000, aimed e.g. at various applications of plasma XUV sources, QSS plasma XUV lasers, laser ion sources, and laser-induced shock waves. An overview of the research programmes of all the three laboratories is given in the paper.