[Internship Master & PhD] Innovative architectures for high-energy high-repetition-rate laser amplifiers

In the last decade, large research infrastructures for structural analysis of materials and dense matter such as x- ray free electron lasers (XFEL), synchrotrons and accelerator facilities have started to consider upgrading their capacities by including high-energy high-repetition-rate lasers into their facilities. To develop this next generation of high-energy high-repetition-rate laser amplifiers, a European consortium gathering major laboratories and industrials in this domain has just received an European grant to realize cutting-edge research on the technology for high-repetition-rate intense lasers (THRILL). In this frame the LULI and the LCF are proposing an internship and a PhD on innovative development on such lasers.

The goal of this internship/PhD is to develop new laser architectures integrating passive and active coherent beam combining for high-energy high-repetition-rate laser amplifiers since they are known to be a pivotal development direction in laser technology. One of the main bottlenecks identified for such amplifiers concerns the energy limitations and, here, we plan to focus on systems capable of delivering an energy above one kilojoule at a repetition rate of one shot per 1-to-5 minutes. The LULI and the LCF are pioneers in coherent beam combining and recently discovered new architectures particularly interesting to efficiently combine large laser beams at high energy preserving the beam homogeneity and beam quality which is also a keystone for such laser development.

The student will be involved in the experimental development including state of the art lasers. This thesis includes an important experimental component related to the design and analysis of the largest international lasers with the possibility of publishing several articles. In addition, the student will also be involved in a more theoretical part integrating the physics of lasers; and participate in the strong interactions that we maintain with the various laboratories involved in this project and also a French laser company also pioneer in this domain: Amplitude. The proposed thesis is a rare opportunity to be involved in an extremely innovative and large-scale laser project. This project should have a very strong impact on major societal issues and allow remarkable advances in many scientific fields with applications in astrophysics and planetary sciences, for example.